Australia’s digital health agency reshapes My Health Record support amid rising usage and governance overhaul

After more than a decade with Accenture at the centre of My Health Record operations, Australia’s digital health agency is redrawing the chain of command rather than walking away from the supplier. The Australian Digital Health Agency has handed Accenture a fresh application support and maintenance deal worth about A$161.6 million, running from 28 August 2026 to 27 August 2029, with one extension option that could keep it in place until 31 August 2032, according to iTnews and Health...

What has changed is who is meant to be in charge. In its 1 September statement, ADHA said (digitalhealth.gov.au) the contract creates a new agency-led, multi-supplier operating model, replacing earlier arrangements under which responsibility for running, maintaining and integrating the platform was more heavily outsourced. John Borchi, the agency’s chief technical officer, said the agency would now set priorities, coordinate delivery across several suppliers and keep hold of governance and assurance. Healthcare IT News reported (healthcareitnews.com) that an ADHA spokesperson described the previous National Infrastructure Operator model as having been “more externalised”.

That matters because My Health Record is no longer a lightly used federal IT project. Amanda Cattermole, ADHA’s chief executive, said in the agency release (digitalhealth.gov.au) that the system now has more than 25 million active records, about 207 million clinician uses over the past 12 months and roughly 30 million consumer views each month. The agency has separately said consumer views of pathology and diagnostic imaging reports were running at more than 3 million a week by early June 2026, up 433%, after the 2025 Sharing by Default legislation pushed more information into the system; uploads of those reports had risen 105% to more than 5 million a week. (digitalhealth.gov.au)

The support contract also sits alongside a broader rebuild of the underlying architecture. ADHA said (digitalhealth.gov.au) the work is intended to keep services stable while the system moves towards a modernised FHIR-based ecosystem. That transition is already under way: in August 2025 the agency announced that Telstra Health, working with Smile Digital Health and Leidos Australia, had won the contract to lead the transformation of My Health Record’s data architecture, with the aim of enabling more real-time and interoperable information sharing. (digitalhealth.gov.au) Healthcare IT News reported (healthcareitnews.com) that the new Accenture contract is meant to support that migration.

ADHA has gone out of its way to stress that this award followed a genuine market test. Its statement said (digitalhealth.gov.au) the procurement was shaped by industry consultation and by responses to a request for information issued in November 2024. A media release from that period said the agency was seeking views from organisations including small and medium-sized firms, and flagged that future support arrangements would probably involve collaboration with other vendors. (digitalhealth.gov.au) The request for tender then closed in October 2025, and Pulse+IT reported (pulseit.news) that the assessment covered technical capability, delivery, commercial terms, value for money, legal settings, security and risk. ADHA added that the evaluation was backed by independent probity, legal and procurement assurance. (digitalhealth.gov.au)

That emphasis on process is not accidental. In June 2024, the Australian National Audit Office concluded that ADHA’s procurement and contract management of the My Health Record National Infrastructure Operator had been only partly effective. The audit said (anao.gov.au) poor procurement planning and failures to observe core elements of the Commonwealth Procurement Rules had weakened outcomes. The Mandarin’s reporting on the audit said (themandarin.com.au) Acting Auditor-General Rona Mellor criticised poor planning, “limited” assessment of commercial risk and day-to-day contract administration that was “not fully fit for purpose”.

The ANAO laid out why the arrangement had become so contentious. It said Accenture’s original National Infrastructure Operator contract began in June 2012 at A$47 million, and that by February 2024 the arrangements in place with the company totalled A$746 million through to 2025. (anao.gov.au) By July 2025, when ADHA took My Health Record and its API gateway support to open tender, iTnews reported (itnews.com.au) that the package had swollen to A$788 million. The audit also found that the contract had been amended eight times between January 2018 and February 2024, with six in-term amendments worth A$54 million for which ADHA did not document value-for-money considerations. (anao.gov.au)

There were operational warning signs too. The audit said (anao.gov.au) a request for updated system architecture in August 2019, made ahead of an intended market approach, became entangled in a dispute with Accenture that was not resolved until March 2023. It also warned that paying for some services in advance weakened the agency’s leverage over performance. Even so, iTnews reported in 2024 that ADHA had claimed all available service credits for underperformance, extracting A$1.04 million from Accenture on 25 occasions between January 2018 and December 2023. (itnews.com.au)

Accenture is presenting the renewal as a continuation of a long-standing role, but under tighter supervision. Mike Brennan, managing director of Health and Public Service at Accenture Australia, told Healthcare IT News (healthcareitnews.com) that the company would support the “secure and reliable operation” of national digital health services while working with ADHA and its partners. The real test, though, will be whether the agency’s new multi-supplier set-up produces the accountability that auditors said was missing from the old model. With usage climbing, new interoperability rules taking effect and security work continuing, including ADHA’s planned enablement of TLS 1.3 in the My Health Record production environment on 30 September 2026, the contract will be judged less by its headline value than by whether this revised structure is better at keeping a national health platform dependable while it is being rebuilt. (implementer.digitalhealth.gov.au)

Source: Noah Wire Services