Australian Health Data Evidence Network (AHDEN)

The Challenge

Vast amounts of siloed health data hold untapped potential to provide valuable insights into disease. Currently, this data is not being utilised effectively, leading to missed opportunities to improve patient outcomes. If left unaddressed, this could hinder advancements in healthcare and risk Australia falling behind on the global stage in medical research and innovation.

The Response and Target Outcomes

The Australian Health Data Evidence Network (AHDEN) is a collaborative initiative designed to unlock the value of hospital medical records for research and innovation. It will empower researchers, healthcare providers, and policymakers with improved access to actionable insights, fostering advancements in healthcare delivery and outcomes. 

By leveraging the OMOP (Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership) Common Data Model (CDM), AHDEN plans to standardise and harmonise health data across institutions. This will make the data research-ready and interoperable, enabling large-scale, high-quality analyses. The methods will include:

By combining these approaches, we aim to unlock the full potential of health data to improve patient outcomes and advance healthcare innovation.

AHDEN will be committed to ensuring data privacy and security, promoting responsible data use while enhancing Australia’s research capabilities.

Who Will Benefit

This project is for healthcare researchers, medical professionals, policymakers, and patients across Australia.

• Researchers will gain access to high-quality, harmonised health data, which will enable more robust analyses and better-informed studies.
• Healthcare providers will benefit from insights that improve clinical decision-making, leading to better patient outcomes and more efficient healthcare delivery.
• Policymakers will gain a clearer understanding of health trends, which will help make evidence-based decisions that enhance healthcare policies and services.
• Patients will benefit indirectly through improvements in healthcare systems, treatments, and interventions driven by data-informed insights.

By transforming health data into a valuable resource for research and decision-making, this project will advance healthcare delivery and outcomes.

Latest Updates and Key Resources

March 2026: Read about the recent series of events for AHDEN in Australia, Towards a ‘Smart’ Health System: Key Takeaways from Australia’s Recent OMOP Events

October 2025: Read the launch article for AHDEN, Unlocking the Value of Australia’s Hospital Data to Improve our Health.

Learn about:

• the European Health Data and Evidence Network (EHDEN), on which AHDEN is modelled
• Electronic Medical Records as a National Data Asset, a previous ARDC project to create a national, research-ready hospital electronic medical record data asset using the OMOP CDM for greater accessibility, rapid interrogation, and evidence generation.

In June 2025, the Australian Sensitive Data Interest Group (AUSDIG) hosted a webinar on the Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics (OHDSI) approach, which uses the OMOP CDM for analysis of sensitive healthcare datasets. Watch the recording:

July 2023: We also invite you to watch the introduction and keynote to the 2023 OHDSI APAC Symposium was held July 13-14 in Sydney, Australia at UNSW. The symposium is introduced by Professor Nicole Pratt, the University of South Australia. Professor Patrick Ryan, PhD, Vice President, Observational Health Data Analytics at Janssen Research and Development, provided a keynote talk entitled “Engineering an open science system that builds trust, confidence and addresses the needs of regulators, clinicians, and consumers.”

Keep up-to-date with AHDEN by registering your interest in the People Research Data Commons via this form.