AHPRA gears up for more notifications

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) is preparing for notifications to rise amid ‘increased contestability of practitioner decisions’ as it sets out its new five-year strategy.
 
Its National Scheme Strategy 2031, published on Tuesday, outlines three broad trends likely to shape health regulation: a workforce strained by an ageing population, greater ‘self-sourcing’ of health advice, and increased use of artificial intelligence (AI), telehealth, social media, and ‘other evolving technologies’.
 
‘We anticipate a rise in the diagnostic use of AI, robotic surgery, and bioengineering, driving increased contestability of practitioner decisions and new health business models,’ the strategy states.
 
‘The ability of non-regulated entities and practitioners to exploit these advances – operating at scale, often from outside Australia – poses significant threat.’
 
It says its planning ‘must account for handovers between state and territory complaint entities, growing numbers of notifications and costs associated with system improvements’.
 
While not explicitly mentioned, the reference to handovers may hint at changes proposed in the ‘complexity review’ published last year, which suggested switching to a ‘single front door’ complaints process in each jurisdiction.
 
Launched by AHPRA CEO Justin Untersteiner, the strategy also emphasises three themes: effective harm prevention, a culturally safe health system for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and a sustainable health workforce.
 
RACGP President Dr Michael Wright said all are important areas supported by the college, while emphasising the need for an efficient notifications process.  
 
‘There is a clear role for AHPRA in making sure the health system is safe, but also making sure its processes are clear, transparent and accountable so that both the public and medical practitioners have trust in the system,’ he told newsGP.
 
‘There’s a real need to make sure our systems are improving so that notifications are assessed early.
 
‘If they’re at low level or require no further action, it’s important that health practitioners learn that quickly and if there is additional investigation needed, that also needs to happen in a timely manner.
 
‘One of the hardest things for GPs and other doctors when they do have notifications is the uncertainty of not knowing what’s going to happen or how long it’s going to take.’
 
The newly unveiled strategy comes following a surge in notifications, which left the regulator facing ‘significant pressure’, according to its own assessments.
 
Overall complaints increased by 19% in the last financial year, while notifications older than a year piled up by 30.7%.
 
The report noted that while the average time to complete a notification was the lowest on record, this was ‘driven largely by faster completion times for low-risk matters’.
 
In its strategy, the regulator said that despite improvements ‘the notification process can be arduous and convoluted, unduly impacting practitioners and notifiers’ and that it has a duty to resolve notifications in a timely, transparent, fair and empathetic way.  
 
It also acknowledges plans to use AI for its regulatory work, with a spokesperson confirming that it is testing the use of AI ‘to scan publicly available online content, such as websites and social media advertising’. 
 
‘AI may help flag information that needs a closer look, but it doesn’t make decisions,’ they told newsGP. 
 
‘All information is reviewed by AHPRA staff and all regulatory decisions are made by people.’ 
 
Meanwhile, the regulator confirmed it will introduce a single practitioner identifier to be used by health professionals from the time they study until their retirement.
 
That recommendation was another to feature in the complexity review, which also proposed that AHPRA eventually stop looking after minor complaints.
 
AHPRA acknowledged that review as helping to inform its new strategy, alongside widespread staff and stakeholder consultation.

The RACGP is running a webinar with Avant on mandatory reporting on 21 April. For full details, see the RACGP website.

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AHPRA Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency