Segment-specific, 18-dimension benchmark maps vendor strengths as Australian boards elevate workflow, medication safety, My Health Record interoperability, cloud operating models, and cyber-resilient continuity planning through 2030.

SYDNEY, AU / ACCESS Newswire / January 5, 2026 / Black Book Market Research LLC today released State of Australian Healthcare IT 2026: Strategic Fit of Acute-Care EMR/EHR Platforms, a technology-forward benchmark intended to support Australian hospital and health service leadership teams as they assess digital clinical platform options across a 2026-2030 planning horizon.

Based on input from 454 validated Australian stakeholders with direct EMR/EHR experience, the report evaluates 13 acute-care EMR/EHR platforms against 18 qualitative strategic-fit dimensions, consolidated into four domains: Clinical & Operational Effectiveness; Interoperability, Data & Innovation; Resilience, Scalability & Governance; and Partnership, Value & Strategic Alignment. Findings are segmented across four operating environments: Public Health Systems & Major Public Hospitals; Regional, Rural & Smaller Public Hospitals; Private Acute & Day Hospitals; and Ambulance, Retrieval & Hospital-Based Emergency Services.

Black Book emphasizes that the results are directional indicators of strategic fit, not a market-share study or "single winner" ranking. Aggregate national findings are reported with an estimated margin of error of approximately ±4-5 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

What boards and executive steering committees are optimizing for in 2026

Across the national panel, stakeholders validated a decision model that is shifting from feature checklists to platform-level operating capability including cognitive workload, medication-safety architecture, standards-based interoperability, data liquidity, reliability engineering, and cloud/managed-service maturity.

"Australia's next EMR cycle is not a software refresh, it is unequivocally a whole-of-system platform decision, and the determining factors are interoperability, resilience, and data governance at scale," said Douglas Brown, Black Book Market Research LLC. "Health service boards are now demanding proof that a platform can move real-time clinical and operational signals across LHD/HHS boundaries, sustain safe-mode continuity through cyber events or outages, and deliver an AI-ready data layer without locking organisations into bespoke technical debt. My Health Record connectivity is baseline infrastructure; differentiation comes from the architecture and operating model that makes it secure, usable, and clinically frictionless in day-to-day care."

Domain importance

• 44.1% (200 respondents): Clinical & Operational Effectiveness

• 27.1% (123): Interoperability, Data & Innovation

• 15.0% (68): Resilience, Scalability & Governance

• 13.9% (63): Partnership, Value & Strategic Alignment

Why the 18-dimension framework resonated (follow-up multi-select):

• 81% agreed the dimensions directly address clinician/nurse workload, usability, and burnout

• 78% emphasized medication safety and closed-loop medicines management

• 72% highlighted interoperability with My Health Record and other national services

• 69% noted the dimensions reflect real-world risks (outages, cyber incidents, scaling across jurisdictions)

• 64% agreed the framework appropriately accounts for long-term partnership value and strategic alignment

"Most important" individual dimension (single choice distribution)

• 24% Clinician Workflow Fit & Usability

• 21% Medication Safety & End-to-End Medicines Management

• 14% Interoperability with My Health Record and National Services

• 11% Safety, Reliability & Business Continuity

• 8% Enterprise Data Platform & Analytics Readiness

• 22% all other dimensions combined

The respondent panel included 31.9% frontline clinicians (medical staff), 24.0% nurses/midwives, 11.9% pharmacists/allied health, 20.0% digital health/IT/informatics leaders, 7.0% executives, and 5.1% HIM/quality/safety roles.

No single "best EMR" in Australia: leadership is distributed by segment and domain

Rather than producing a generic overall ranking, the benchmark shows distributed leadership where strategic fit changes materially by care setting, existing estate, governance posture, and digital operating model.

#1-rated domain leaders by segment (composite indices):

• Public Health Systems & Major Public Hospitals:

  • Clinical & Operational Effectiveness: Oracle Health

  • Interoperability, Data & Innovation: InterSystems IntelliCare

  • Resilience, Scalability & Governance: Dedalus (ORBIS / webPAS / MedChart)

  • Partnership, Value & Strategic Alignment: Dedalus (ORBIS / webPAS / MedChart)

• Regional, Rural & Smaller Public Hospitals:

  • Clinical & Operational Effectiveness: Dedalus (ORBIS / webPAS / MedChart)

  • Interoperability, Data & Innovation: Orion Health

  • Resilience, Scalability & Governance: InterSystems TrakCare

  • Partnership, Value & Strategic Alignment: Dedalus (ORBIS / webPAS / MedChart)

• Private Acute & Day Hospitals:

  • Clinical & Operational Effectiveness: Dedalus (ORBIS / webPAS / MedChart)

  • Interoperability, Data & Innovation: Dedalus (ORBIS / webPAS / MedChart)

  • Resilience, Scalability & Governance: Oracle Health

  • Partnership, Value & Strategic Alignment: Telstra Health Kyra Clinical

• Ambulance, Retrieval & Hospital-Based Emergency Services:

  • Clinical & Operational Effectiveness: Alcidion Miya Precision

  • Interoperability, Data & Innovation: Alcidion Miya Precision

  • Resilience, Scalability & Governance: Oracle Health

  • Partnership, Value & Strategic Alignment: Alcidion Miya Precision

Across the 16 segment-domain combinations, Dedalus leads six, Oracle Health leads three, and Alcidion Miya Precision leads three, reinforcing the report's "no single winner" conclusion.

Vendor leadership signals at the dimension level (Australia, all segments combined)

To provide board-ready specificity, Black Book also identifies top-rated vendors across each of the 18 strategic-fit dimensions (aggregated view across all acute-care segments).

Top-rated vendor by dimension (Q1-Q18):

• Clinician workflow fit & usability: Epic

• Medication safety & end-to-end medicines management: Dedalus (MedChart / ORBIS)

• Patient administration & operational backbone: InterSystems TrakCare

• Support for prehospital/virtual/out-of-hospital care: Alcidion Miya Precision

• Interoperability with My Health Record & national services: Orion Health

• Open standards & vendor neutrality: Dedalus ORBIS

• Enterprise data platform & analytics readiness: Oracle Health

• Innovation in clinical decision support & user experience: Alcidion Miya Precision

• Localisation to Australian/NZ context: Telstra Health Kyra Clinical

• Safety, reliability & business continuity: Oracle Health

• Cloud & managed services maturity: MEDITECH Expanse

• Configurability vs customisation: InterSystems TrakCare

• Change management & clinical adoption support: Epic

• Client support responsiveness & communication: Telstra Health Kyra Clinical

• Integration with existing PAS/pharmacy/ancillary systems: Dedalus (webPAS / MedChart / ORBIS)

• Patient engagement & digital front door: Orion Health

• Alignment with strategic digital health roadmaps: Oracle Health

• Total cost & partnership value (beyond licence price): Dedalus (ORBIS / webPAS / MedChart)

KPI "wins" count across 18 dimensions:

• Dedalus (ORBIS / webPAS / MedChart): 4 (Q2, Q6, Q15, Q18)

• Oracle Health: 3 (Q7, Q10, Q17)

• Epic: 2 (Q1, Q13)

• InterSystems TrakCare: 2 (Q3, Q12)

• Alcidion Miya Precision: 2 (Q4, Q8)

• Telstra Health Kyra Clinical: 2 (Q9, Q14)

• Orion Health: leads My Health Record interoperability and digital front door dimensions (Q5, Q16)

Seven technology and operating trends shaping Australian EMR/EHR decisions to 2030

The report highlights seven forces expected to dominate Australian acute-care roadmaps and procurement decisions over the next five years:

1. Consolidation from fragmented application estates toward statewide and enterprise platforms

2. Virtual care and hospital-in-the-home moving from pilots to mainstream service lines

3. Interoperability and modernisation of My Health Record as core national digital health infrastructure

4. Cloud-first and managed service delivery models for core clinical systems and adjacent data platforms

5. Embedded analytics and AI as workflow-native differentiators, underpinned by governance-grade data foundations

6. Cybersecurity, resilience, and business continuity becoming board-level EMR concerns (downtime preparedness, incident response, recovery engineering)

7. Consumer digital front doors and shared decision-making emerging as explicit design and integration requirements

Vendors evaluated

The report evaluates the following vendors/platforms in the Australian acute-care context: Alcidion Miya Precision; Altera Digital Health (Sunrise EMR); Dedalus (ORBIS / webPAS / MedChart); Epic; InterSystems (TrakCare and IntelliCare); IQVIA (Hospital Information System); MEDITECH (Expanse); NTT DATA (Healthcare Provider Solutions); Oracle Health; Orion Health; Philips (TASY EMR); Telstra Health (Kyra Clinical).

Availability

State of Australian Healthcare IT 2026: Strategic Fit of Acute-Care EMR/EHR Platforms is available from Black Book Market Research LLC.
Download: https://blackbookmarketresearch.com/state-of-australian-healthcare-it-2026

About Black Book Market Research LLC

Black Book Market Research LLC is an independent healthcare IT research and global market intelligence firm focused on verified stakeholder input and decision-support benchmarks for healthcare technology selection, adoption, and optimization.