Alpha NSW

Alpha NSW set out to design a state-wide Learning Health System (LHS) for children in NSW, meaning a health system that continuously uses data and feedback to improve care. The team worked in partnership with families, clinicians, policymakers and researchers to explore what it would take to make the child health system "learning" at a population level.

The challenge

The health and well-being of children in the first 2000 days has a lasting effect on educational achievement and long-term chronic disease in later life. However, the lack of integration between high-quality data, analytic capacity and timely health improvement initiatives means practitioners, service leaders and policymakers cannot use data effectively to plan and evaluate early intervention services and monitor high-level health outcomes.

In NSW, roughly one in four Australian children (20-25%) starts school developmentally vulnerable. These vulnerabilities are exacerbated by fragmented services and inequities. Valuable data on children's health and development are collected by various programs in health, education and social services, but these data are not well integrated.

Our approach

Collaborative, co-design approach engaging over 130 stakeholders through workshops, focus groups and interviews. The research reviewed best-practice examples internationally, then co-developed system requirements, core principles and critical enablers of a state-wide paediatric LHS. The team also mapped existing data across the first 2000 days of a child's life and created geospatial analyses to identify patterns of child health needs and service gaps in NSW.

Key goals

• Define the system requirements, guiding principles and key enablers for a state-wide paediatric LHS in NSW.

• Engage over 130 stakeholders across health, policy, research, education and community sectors.

• Co-develop a theory of change illustrating how continuous learning cycles would lead to improved outcomes.

• Create a practical implementation roadmap to embed learning cycles and family partnerships into routine care.

Evaluation & impact

Delivered a set of actionable insights and tools to move the concept of a paediatric LHS from idea to reality. The co-designed theory of change and implementation roadmap provided health leaders and policymakers with clear direction. The project outcomes are now informing discussions on how to implement these ideas at scale.