This appeared a few days ago.
Bridging Queensland’s digital divide
Felix Zerbib, Rachel Nolan, Edward Cavanough, Scott Brown
Publisher
Digital divide Digital literacy Digital communications Digital inclusion
Resources
Bridging Queensland’s digital divide (report)
Bridging Queensland’s digital divide (fact sheet)
Description
As the world moves increasingly online, digital inclusion is necessary for people to be fulsomely engaged in economic, social and civic life. Despite that reality, many Australians remain significantly excluded from the digital world through lack of infrastructure access, affordability issues, or lack of ability to use technology.
This report explores the state of digital inclusion in Queensland, showing the state falls behind a number of other Australian jurisdictions on aggregate measures of digital inclusion.
Publication Details
Copyright: McKell Institute 2021
License type: All Rights Reserved
Access Rights Type: open
Post date: 8 Sep 2021
Here is the link:
https://apo.org.au/node/313938
Here is a summary of the Report recommendation.
Recommendations
The McKell Institute makes a number of recommendations. All are practical measures designed to contribute to a more inclusive Queensland.
RECOMMENDATION
1
The Queensland Government recognises that accessing the internet and digital media
enables the realisation of protected human rights
RECOMMENDATION
2
The Queensland Government develop a 10 year Digital Inclusion Roadmap in
consultation with
industry, social service providers and the community
RECOMMENDATION
3
The Queensland Government pioneer the development of a digital capability
framework to improve the
consistency and success rate of government and industry funded digital
inclusion programs
RECOMMENDATION
4
The Queensland Government increase funding for digital literacy programs to
evolve and scale existing successful programs and develop new programs targeting
other digitally excluded cohorts, in consultation with industry and social
service providers
RECOMMENDATION
5
The Queensland Government audit infrastructure, digital equipment and
resourcing needs of public libraries, Indigenous Knowledge Centres and community
and neighbourhood centres to fully enable them to act as digital access and
support hubs
RECOMMENDATION
6
The Queensland Government increase existing funding to more significantly invest
with industry, councils, businesses and communities to address regional and
remote telecommunications
blackspots, coverage quality and network resiliency
RECOMMENDATION
7
The Queensland Government, as it increasingly delivers services online,
ensures it is delivering a
consistent, inclusive and accessible online experience across all government
websites
RECOMMENDATION
8
The Queensland Government ensures all low income, vulnerable and remote
students can access
suitable connectivity and devices at school and at home
RECOMMENDATION
9
The Queensland Government lobby the Federal Government to create a permanent,
affordable NBN consumer plan for households receiving government income
benefits
In passing I suspect all these recommendations could be equally applied in the whole of Australia.
The bottom line here is that access to digital services is related very strongly related to location and to family income. The closer to major centres and the higher the income the less is the issue.
Clearly the level of access to Digital Health services relies fundamentally on both access and affordability of internet services equally and the level of exclusion among the older populations, CALD and isolated populations is significant as a blog a week or so ago showed for access to COVID education!
See here:
https://aushealthit.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-observed-overall-population-digital.html
The point that becomes clear with all this is that any digital initiative – health related or otherwise – needs to have a properly developed plan for access by the ‘digitally deprived’ and properly supported alternative access arrangements. Just surging ahead without a proper plan is really just not acceptable.
In the US digital capability is now seen as an important Social Determinant Of Health (SDOH) along with access to food, housing, social services and so on.
Right now I am not aware of what the ADHA is doing for #myHealthRecord access and use, noting that this is their flagship initiative. I suspect the back up plan goes something like ‘ask your family or friends to help’ i.e. it seem to have fallen between the cracks!
Equally the benefits of eScripts are basically confined to smart-phone users?
Before rolling into a new and equally exclusionary Strategy the ADHA needs to fix up the old one!
David.
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