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Australia’s interoperability conversation is shifting from ambition to implementation.
At HIC 2026, Telstra Health’s Care, Connected: Turning Vision into Reality session brought together leaders from across the health and care ecosystem to tackle the practical questions that come with that shift.
Leading the discussion were Telstra Health’s Dr Monica Trujillo, Chief Health & Risk Officer, and Farhoud Salimi, Chief Technology Officer, and Peter O’Halloran, Chief Digital Officer at the Australian Digital Health Agency.
We also took the conversation to the room, testing some of the industry’s most pressing questions against the experiences and priorities of people working across health and care.
Where the hard work starts
The responses highlighted both the opportunity ahead and some clear challenges to making connected care work at scale.
Technical readiness remains a significant hurdle, with 74% of respondents identifying it as a key barrier to interoperability adoption.
But when we shifted the conversation from adoption to scale, a broader picture emerged Among session attendees surveyed:
- 67% identified integration with legacy systems as a major challenge
- 63% pointed to change management and clinical adoption
- 50% identified data governance and consent workflows
- 40% pointed to funding and resource availability
- 30% identified regulatory compliance and standards alignment
As one attendee put it: “The solutions are available but critical to make sure they are designed and delivered WITH clinicians, not TO clinicians.”
Where the foundation for connected care could make the biggest difference
When we asked where interoperability could deliver the most value, the responses pointed to practical workflows where timely, meaningful information can directly support care.
Transfer of care, referrals and shared care, medication safety and access to information at the point of care all featured strongly, alongside chronic disease management and emergency care.
The use cases differ, but the need is consistent: getting the right information to the right place, in a form that can be understood and acted on.
Interoperability is the foundation that brings structure and clarity to complex data across health and care settings, helping it become connected.
Moving beyond connection
These findings reinforced a central theme from the panel: many of the foundations needed to advance connected care are taking shape. Policy direction is strengthening, standards are maturing and expectations around information sharing are changing.
The opportunity now is to move from why interoperability matters to how we make it work at scale. That means looking beyond moving information between systems to coordinating care from beginning to end, so the right information reaches the right person, at the right moment, within the workflows clinicians already use.
Turning interoperability into coordinated care
For interoperability to make a meaningful difference, information needs to be structured, shared in both directions and understood consistently, while preserving the context, status and provenance needed to act with confidence.
This is where Corus iX™ comes in. It is the interoperability foundation to connected care, built on three qualities:
- It speaks the industry’s language (standards-based and FHIR native)
- It can connect existing clinical, operational and partner systems
- It keeps information trusted, traceable and appropriately managed
Corus iX™ helps create structure from fragmented information and is designed to surfaceinsight that follows each person throughout their care journey. That’s brought to life through connected workflows across referrals, aged care resident transfers and emerging use cases, connecting existing systems you rely on today.
Making the next phase real
The discussion at HIC reflected both optimism about how far connected care has come and pragmatism about what needs to happen next.
If this conversation resonated with what you’re seeing in your organisation, there’s more to explore.
Discover how Corus iX™ can help turn interoperability into care, connected.