Digital Health Maturity Assessment for Brisbane North PHN
About
Beacon Strategies assessed digital health maturity across Brisbane North PHN’s commissioned provider network, establishing an evidence base and practical priorities for future investment.
SERVICE: Health planning
SECTOR: Primary Health Network
STATUS: Completed 2025
CLIENT: Brisbane North PHN
Background
Brisbane North PHN commissioned Beacon Strategies to build an evidence-informed understanding of digital health capability across its commissioned provider network. The work was designed to establish where providers stood, identify gaps and opportunities, and inform implementation of the PHN’s Digital Health Strategy 2026–2028.
The assessment covered general practice, allied health, community pharmacy and community services. It examined digital maturity across governance and strategy, infrastructure and security, interoperability, team capability, person-enabled health, data and insight, and innovation and future readiness.
Approach
We delivered a staged assessment combining digital health landscape analysis, quantitative measurement and qualitative stakeholder engagement.
Reviewed international, national and regional digital health strategies, maturity models and capability frameworks.
Developed a provider-centred maturity framework suited to primary and community care.
Designed a reusable, plain-language self-assessment instrument covering the core domains of digital maturity.
Collected and analysed provider responses across general practice, allied health, pharmacy and community services.
Engaged providers through open-text responses and structured consultation.
Compared maturity by domain and provider type, and examined how capabilities related to one another.
Translated the evidence into strategic recommendations and staged implementation priorities.
Project deliverable
Digital Health Maturity Assessment — the final report brought together the landscape review, maturity framework, provider assessment, stakeholder perspectives and strategic implications in a single practical resource for Brisbane North PHN.
Outcome
The project produced a comprehensive Digital Health Maturity Assessment that established a baseline across the provider network, identified strengths and development priorities, documented practical barriers experienced by providers, and translated the findings into strategic recommendations aligned with the PHN’s Digital Health Strategy.
The assessment highlighted a consistent strategic challenge: foundational digital connectivity was more developed than providers’ capability to translate systems and data into operational insight. It also demonstrated that provider groups had different maturity profiles and would benefit from tailored support rather than a uniform network-wide approach.
The final deliverable provided Brisbane North PHN with a repeatable framework for future assessment and a practical basis for prioritising digital health investment, implementation support and capability development.
Link to our vision
A more impactful social purpose sector — this project supports our vision by giving Brisbane North PHN a transparent and repeatable evidence base for digital health planning. The assessment helps direct attention and resources towards priority capabilities and provider groups, while creating a baseline against which future progress can be considered.
How we can help
We support Primary Health Networks and other health organisations to understand system capability, identify strategic priorities and translate complex evidence into practical plans for improvement.
Explore more of our work in Health Planning.
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