CEO’s report
Dr Zoran Bolevich
Having joined the institute as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in June 2024, I have been thoroughly impressed with the dedication and expertise displayed by our staff. The institute has had a busy and productive year, solidifying its position as a national leader in health and welfare data.
We believe that stronger evidence via data and information is crucial for better decisions and improved health and welfare. In 2023–24, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) delivered on our purpose to create information and statistics on a range of health and welfare topics, and prepared data and analysis on the long-term trends and patterns in Australia’s health and welfare. The institute released 413 health and welfare data products, which are accessible, transparent and available for anyone to access from the AIHW website.
Understanding the needs and priorities of our funders, data suppliers and, most importantly, the wide variety of users of our products and services, is one of the keys to achieving greater impact.
The institute measures how the information and statistics we produce are used to inform and support better policy and service delivery decisions, directly seeking feedback from funders, stakeholders and users of our products to ensure content meets their needs. We work on a cycle of continuous improvement as we implement changes to future published products based on this feedback.
While this direct feedback is invaluable to the work we produce, the ways in which our data and information influence health and welfare outcomes are not always so easy to demonstrate.
One of the ways we track and measure our impact with data users is through case studies, some of which you will see throughout this report. Impact case studies demonstrate the different ways in which the information and statistics we produce are used to inform and support better policy and service delivery decisions.
I am excited to continue these conversations about the impact of the institute’s work. They encourage us to think about the value and utility of our products and services, as well as the experience of people accessing and using the incredible wealth of information provided by the institute.
Other exciting developments at the institute include our focus on developing more user- specific plans to manage the linkage and integration of health and welfare data in the future. Our goal is to maximise the value of our data sets, ensure efficient and timely access to integrated data, and enable the production of high-quality data and analysis to support improvements in health and welfare. During the first half of 2023–24 the AIHW data integration strategy: 2023–2028 was finalised, outlining the agreed vision, objectives and priorities for AIHW’s data integration activities over the next 5 years.
We also made significant strides to improve access to national linked health data.
The AIHW released the National Health Data Hub (NHDH) in May 2024, a key linked data resource in the National Health Data System. The NHDH will facilitate person-based and longitudinal studies to support contemporary medical research, inform health and aged care services planning and policy development, and monitor service delivery.
The development of the NHDH is supported by the Australian National Data Integration Infrastructure (ANDII), which enhances data linkage and integration across Australia. In partnership with the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and the Department of Social Services (DSS), we are developing ANDII and working to establish the National Disability Data Asset (NDDA) as the first use case for this new national infrastructure.
Through projects like these, ANDII will improve the quality and timeliness of linked data, supporting policy, evaluation, and research efforts nationwide. In addition to this development work, AIHW also completed 30 custom data linkage projects during the period, enabling a wide range of high-quality research projects in areas such as kidney disease and early childhood cancers.
The AIHW is renowned for its essential role in turning data into useful insights and analytical products to support better policy and service delivery decisions. I am very proud to have been appointed to lead an organisation that has such an outstanding national and international reputation, and I look forward to continuing to deliver our vision of stronger evidence, better decisions, and improved health and welfare.