2024 AHPA Member Policy Symposium: Forging Connections Across the Policy and Practice Divide

Published 31 October 2024, revised 1 November 2024

On 17 October, AHPA hosted its annual Member Policy Symposium in Melbourne with more than 80 attendees across the 40 member organisations. This year’s theme was ‘Forging Connections Across the Policy and Practice Divide’.

The symposium commenced with a Q&A between CAHO Anita Hobson-Powell and AHPA CEO Bronwyn Morris-Donovan about changing the narrative around allied health within the Department of Health and Aged Care and strategies for effectively advocating from the outside-in.

Session 1: Multidisciplinary team care

Elizabeth Oliver (change care consultant and occupational therapist) and Associate Professor Jade Cartwright, opened the presentation sessions with an engaging presentation about the learnings from Maggie Beer’s Big Mission.

Presentations from Dr Sue Williams (Inala Primary Care), Professor Stephen Isbel (Centre for Ageing Research and Translation, University of Canberra) Professor Yun-Hee Jeon (Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney) informed an engaging panel discussion about innovation and research in aged care.

Session 2: Using data for better policy

Session two shifted to all things data and digital with presentations from Siobhain Simpson (StewartBrown), and Erin West (Speech Pathology Australia) covering the impact of data analysis on policy.

Belinda Swan (Department of Health: Digital Health Branch) Michael Hosking (CSIRO Sparked) and Shar O’Dea closed out the day breaking down the importance of consistent terminology to enable clinical information sharing within the digital ecosystem.

AHPA thanks all speakers, panellists and special guests for their expert contributions to the day.

It was wonderful to network with colleagues in person and AHPA looks forward to more opportunities for collaboration in 2025.