In the lead up to the Australian Federal Budget in May 2023, Australian Health Journal reached out to peak health industry bodies to hear about their priorities, either noted in pre-budget submissions lodged with Federal Government in January 2023 or in recent forums such as the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce.
Others have stated their priorities directly with Federal Government. Through these interviews, AHJ gives a final opportunity to communicate to all health stakeholders, the funding needs for a range of priorities. These range from new models of care to pilots and wholesale, system improvements to building more sustainable workforces to help grow certain sectors of the health system
The Chief Executive Officer of Osteopathy Australia, Antony Nicholas spoke with Australian Health Journal about:
- Involvement in the Strengthening Medicare Task Force
- The unique skills osteopaths have that can address the chronic disease burden
- Current workforce issues around osteopaths and if enough are coming through via student placements
- How uploading data to My Health Record by osteopaths could assist team-based care of patients
- How can the value of osteopaths in Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs) could be better understood and available to residents
- The recommendations around aged care access to allied health services, including osteopathy
- The recommendations around consumer access to osteopaths and GP referrals
- Other osteopathy recommendations in the upcoming Federal Budget
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Detection and prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias
Professor Vicky Vass serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Alzheimer’s Research Australia, which is based in Perth, Western Australia. Australian Health Journal met with Professor Vass to hear of the organisation’s mission to solve the mysteries surrounding Alzheimer’s disease, and focus on detection as the key to their efforts.
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CASE STUDY: Creating awareness, workforce education & dissemination strategy in national screening
At the recent Screening Conference 2025 in Sydney, hosted by Public Health Association, Dr Rachael Dodd, Senior Research Fellow at The Daffodil Centre, spoke about the information and educational resources created to increase awareness in the healthcare workforce and community on the upcoming Australia’s National Lung Cancer Screening Program commencing in July 2025.
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Maximising benefits, minimising harms in population health screening
Population screening is an important contributor to advancing health outcomes through the early detection of and successful intervention for chronic disease. The evolution of science, technology and evidence relating to diseases which are or may be amenable to a population screening approach deserve broad discussion and the sharing of expertise and evidence. They also warrant close scrutiny in context of health policy and health resource allocation considerations.
In March, Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) convened Screening Conference Conference 2025 with the theme of ‘Population Screening for Chronic Disease – Maximising Benefits, Minimising Harms’.
