December 2020; Vol. 30(4):e3042025 https://doi.org/10.17061/phrp3042025 www.phrp.com.au Perspective The Australian health system response to COVID-19 from a resilient health care perspective: what have we learned? Robin Clay-Williamsa,b, Frances Rapporta and Jeffrey Braithwaitea a Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW b Corresponding author:
[email protected] Article history Abstract Publication date: December 2020 As of late 2020, Australia’s response to the coronavirus disease 2019 Citation: Clay-Williams R, Rapport F, (COVID-19) pandemic has been relatively successful in comparison with Braithwaite J. The Australian health responses in Northern Europe and the US – but what have we learned? In system response to COVID-19 from a this perspective, we used a resilient health care approach to frame the health resilient health care perspective: what system response in three key Australian states (New South Wales, Victoria have we learned? Public Health Res and Queensland) with large and diverse population groups. We assessed Pract. 2020;30(4):e3042025. https://doi. their response in terms of four resilience capacities: how did Australian health org/10.17061/phrp3042025 authorities monitor public health to enable anomalies to be detected; how did they anticipate the emerging COVID-19 crisis; how did they respond to the pandemic; and what did they learn from this experience? Increased system Key points agility and new ways of working, including contact tracing, telehealth and resource-sharing, are now available to underpin Australia’s response to future • Australia’s response to the COVID-19 challenges or other unexpected events.