What they said over drinks - Canberra Summit

If you couldn’t make the Wild Health Summit in Canberra last week you would have missed the final night drinks too. Never fear, we’ve gathered a collection of short interviews during the final drinks session where a handful of participants share their thoughts about what sparked their thinking most Summit. Janine Cox is operations director of Health System Integration Innovation in North Queensland PHN. She says the summit enforced the need for consumer co-design and that the widespread intent for reform was very clear. “I think everybody's having those conversations. We just need to try and formalise that in a funding sense,” she says. David Rolands is one of Australian leading health informaticians. He says it’s a ripe time for transformation. “If you walk around in this summit, you'll see more energy [for reform] than we've seen for a long time. There’s a big sense of energy right across the sector,” he says. Gynecologist Dr Talat Uppal says the summit was a “phenomenal time”. “It’s also made me connect with like-minded clinicians and IT providers regarding the lack of interoperability that we often face at the health clinical coal face,” she said. Claire Mullen, executive director of Health Consumers Council Western Australia says she’s keen to take the summit discussions back to consumers and community members and help them to feel more confident engaging in healthcare reform discussions. “The other thing is to make sure that consumers understand what all this means. Where their data is going. And how they can play their part in helping to transform the health system in future,” she says.