Reshaping Australia’s healthcare systems in the age of AI
A recent panel discussion featuring experts with multidisciplinary backgrounds has highlighted the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in addressing key challenges for Australia's healthcare system.
The event was hosted on Tuesday, 26 August 2025, by the Melbourne Institute’s Health, Analytics, Leadership and Economics (HALE) Hub – a research lab funded by the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne.
1st row - Stephen King, Susan Mendez, Yuting Zhang, Arian Lasocki
2nd row - Eduard Hovy, Oliver Daly, Sam Peascod
Professor Yuting Zhang set the tone, explaining the immense potential that AI has to reduce waste and improve efficiency of the current healthcare system: “It’s not about doing more, it's about harnessing innovation, foresight and data intelligence to ensure the greatest possible health benefits”.
Sam Peascod explained that in Europe, the focus has shifted from accepting AI and focusing on implementation, rather than debating its use. Regarding AI adoption, we are no longer debating ‘if’, but rather ‘how’, he said that the government was committed to making AI work despite the complex landscape of responsibility, bias and regulation in healthcare.
Associate Professor Arian Lasocki discussed how AI is already used to assist with administrative tasks in his role as a radiologist, such as screening mammography and lung cancer staging. He considered there may be a risk for radiologists or other clinicians to slowly lose trust in their own expertise over time, due to developing reliance on AI. Effective use of AI would be to allocate it to manual tasks that don’t require human expertise, like AI scribes, so there is more time for practitioners to focus on their patients.
Both Professor Eduard Hovy and Associate Professor J. Oliver Daly agreed that AI is a useful tool to enhance human capabilities rather than replace them entirely. They cautioned extreme views on AI, with Hovy criticising those with unrealistic expectations that AI could be a solution to all problems, or that adopting AI would be an all-or-nothing decision. All speakers unanimously agreed that AI should be augmented by human expertise. Patients want and need human contact, and AI should support, not replace, medical care.
Future-proofing Australia’s healthcare system will require harmony between humans and AI to achieve a more efficient, resilient and capable workforce that allows for enhanced integration between our fragmented public/ private and state/ federal mix of services. As we move forward in this digital health revolution, striking the right balance between innovation and responsible implementation remains paramount.
The Melbourne Institute would like to thank all the speakers for their contributions to this event, particularly Dr Stephen King, who moderated the Q&A session. A full list of our speakers and their titles can be viewed here.
