What this means for the people of South Australia
For people affected by cancer, this work supports:
- fairer access to services
- clearer, more coordinated care across services
- better access to clinical trials where appropriate
- improved experiences of care for people affected by cancer
- stronger connections between clinicians, services and researchers to improve how care is delivered across the state.
Why this work matters
To deliver optimal cancer care, we need to understand how well care is currently working. The best way to do this is to analyse the cancer information that is collected across the healthcare system.
Cancer information in South Australia currently sits across many separate systems. This makes it difficult to see the full experience of a person’s cancer care, from diagnosis through treatment and follow‑up, or to understand how well care is working.
Clinicians often spend significant time gathering and recording information across fragmented systems. This can contribute to inefficiencies, duplicated work, and challenges monitoring delays in care and alignment with best‑practice care.
Manual and time intensive processes can also mean some people who may be eligible for clinical trials are missed, and researchers can experience long delays accessing data, limiting the speed and impact of cancer research.
At the same time, people diagnosed with cancer want confidence that their information is used safely, transparently and to improve care, not just collected and stored.
The role of the South Australian Comprehensive Cancer Network (SACCaN)
SACCaN supports coordinated planning and enables better use of cancer information across South Australia by:
- Collaborating with clinicians, researchers, consumers and system partners.
- Supporting coordination and alignment across services and sectors.
- Building strong safeguards for privacy and data use, with consumer oversight built in from the start.
- Ensuring solutions are co‑designed so they add practical value in busy care settings.
Who we are working with
This work is being delivered in partnership with:
- public and private health services across South Australia
- clinicians and multidisciplinary care teams
- consumer representatives and lived‑experience advisors
- Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations
- research and academic partners
- relevant state and national agencies.
What's happening now
- Building the foundations for a more connected approach to cancer information, by progressively linking data from hospitals, clinics and diagnostic services across public and private care.
- Building a robust data asset to track adoption of Optimal Care Pathways (OCPs).
- Supporting multidisciplinary case conferences (MDCCs) by reducing manual data collation, improving access to relevant information, and strengthening shared understanding across care teams.
- Improving visibility of clinical trial opportunities and supporting clinicians to identify people who may be eligible to participate, where appropriate.
- Working in partnership with Aboriginal stakeholders to strengthen cancer data and insights for Aboriginal people.
- Introducing new capabilities carefully and sustainably over time, so they integrate with existing ways of working.