Elevating Standards: Strategic Leadership in Australia’s New Aged Care Act

With Australia recording 1,113 data breaches in 2024 (a 25% year-on-year increase) and the number of elderly individuals projected to reach over 1 million in 2042, the call for proactive governance, robust compliance frameworks, and digital resilience has never been greater for the sector. Australia’s aged care sector stands at a strategic inflection point. On November 1, 2025, the new Aged Care Act came into effect, replacing the 1997 Aged Care Services Act with a rights-based framework that places older Australians at the centre of care delivery.  

Developed by the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care, this landmark reform prioritises transparency, equity, and consumer empowerment, reshaping the regulatory landscape and redefining the standards of governance and compliance to better reflect the values of dignity, choice, and safety.  

The intersection of regulatory reform and rising cyberthreats demands a new leadership paradigm: one that integrates regulatory compliance, risk management, and strategic foresight. This blog aims to help healthcare leaders navigate the evolving data management concerns in the context of the new Aged Care Services Act.

Reframing Compliance Through a Rights-Based Lens

The new Act, a cornerstone of the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care’s reform agenda, introduces a shift from provider-centric models to consumer-led care. It is not merely legislative; rather, it signals a systemic transformation that healthcare executives must anticipate and strategically prepare for. 

The Act’s Statement of Rights serves as a compass for this transformation, articulating the entitlements of older Australians and setting clear expectations for care delivery. Key rights include: 

• Independence and autonomy: The right to make personal decisions about care and lifestyle, even when those choices involve risk
• Equitable access: Fair and consistent access to funded aged care services, regardless of background or circumstance
• Quality and safety: Assurance of high-quality, safe care delivered by qualified professionals
• Privacy and information protection: Respect for personal privacy and control over how personal data is collected, used, and shared
• Person-centred communication: The right to communicate in preferred ways, including through interpreters or communication aids, and to raise concerns without fear of reprisal
• Social connections and advocacy: Support for maintaining relationships, accessing advocates, and staying connected to community and culture

The new Aged Care Act redefines regulatory compliance from a reactive, audit-driven exercise to a model of proactive, ethical governance. Providers are now required to demonstrate how the Statement of Rights is operationalised — not just documented. This includes embedding rights into service agreements, staff training, and daily workflows.

For leaders in Australia’s healthcare organisations, this shift requires a forward-looking approach to data privacy, consent management, and breach accountability. The stakes are high: In 2024, a single breach affected over 10 million Australians, marking the largest incident since mandatory reporting under the Notifiable Data Breach (NDB) scheme came into effect. As aged care providers increasingly handle sensitive health and identity data and the increase in the aging population, the ability to anticipate and mitigate risks must evolve into a strategic imperative.

Patient trust remains a vital area for healthcare providers. Globally, confidence in healthcare systems is waning. In early 2025, public trust in the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) declined from 66% in 2023 to 61% in 2025. In Australia, trust in the healthcare system dropped to 72% in 2024, down from 76% in 2020. In 2024, 76% of New Zealanders share that their healthcare system is overstretched, with only 20% believing that the quality of care they can access will improve in the next few years.

While frontline professionals remain respected, institutional trust may be faltering, underscoring the call for Australian healthcare providers to rebuild confidence through transparent data stewardship and ethical leadership. Compliance is no longer just another requirement to complete; it’s the foundation of consumer confidence and industrial integrity. 

Strengthening Risk Management and Operational Resilience

The Aged Care Act’s emphasis on accountability requires going beyond updating policies. At its core, it mandates adaptive risk frameworks that evolve alongside demographic shifts, emerging technologies, and tightening regulations. For healthcare leaders, this means rethinking how resilience is woven into every detail of daily aged care operations.

Data breaches are strategic disruptors that healthcare providers cannot afford to ignore. In 2024, the average cost of a data breach in healthcare reached $9.77 million, making it the most expensive industry for breach recovery for the 14th consecutive year. With sensitive patient data increasingly stored across hybrid environments, the cost of poor visibility and delayed response is rising fast.

To bolster resilience against these challenges, executives in aged care must prioritise three foundational capabilities:

• Automation. Automated data classification ensures that redundant patient records are systematically archived or defensibly disposed, helping healthcare providers comply with retention policies while avoiding increasing storage costs and breach exposure.
• Cloud-first strategies. Cloud-first platforms are essential for supporting secure data management at scale, providing the flexibility and security controls necessary to protect sensitive information across distributed care environments.
• Data security posture management (DSPM). DSPM enables organisations to map data flows, identify vulnerabilities, and enforce governance policies across distributed systems, ensuring continuous oversight as operational complexity grows. 

The Rise of Collaborative Governance and Strategic Partnerships

The Aged Care Act redefines how leadership must lead. By embedding collaborative governance into its framework, the Act calls on aged care leaders to foster cross-sector partnerships and shared accountability. This shift is especially timely as third-party risks continue to ripple across the healthcare ecosystem. AvePoint’s 2025 State of AI report found that an average of 52% of organisations plan to increase their investments across third-party tools. Like all investments, however, risk is unavoidable. According to Gartner, 82% of compliance leaders experienced consequences from third-party risks in the past year, prompting a renewed focus on transparency and joint responsibility.  

For healthcare executives, this means leading cultural transformation from the inside out. Ethical leadership, data ownership, and operational transparency must become embedded in aged care operations — not just as ideals, but as measurable outcomes.

Still, many organisations face internal challenges: Fragmented technology environments, legacy infrastructure, and inconsistent documentation practices remain persistent barriers, often resulting in visibility gaps and delayed decision-making.

Technology platforms play a pivotal role in bridging these gaps. IDC reports that healthcare CIOs in Asia/Pacific are interested in targeted generative AI (GenAI) use cases, with nearly 40% of regional healthcare organisations already expressing intent to increase their IT budget to allocate for GenAI investments. For aged care providers, this opens the door to partnerships that not only strengthen governance but also expand reach, improve care outcomes, and reduce systemic inequities.

Leading with Foresight, Integrity, and Innovation

For healthcare leaders to enhance compliance with the new Aged Care Act, it’s vital to understand that it is more than another legislative update. Ultimately, this development is a strategic catalyst for innovation across Australia’s aged care sector, ensuring that elderly individuals maintain their agency and right to receive high-caliber services. By embedding a rights-based framework into the heart of care delivery, the aged care services act challenges providers to elevate standards and rethink how compliance, data security, and governance are integrated into long-term planning.

For the Australian healthcare sector, this is an opportunity to lead with strategic foresight, digital resilience, and consumer-centric values. The convergence of rising cyberthreats, evolving consumer expectations, and regulatory reform demands leadership that is both agile and accountable.

As aged care providers start implementing vital changes in accordance with the aged care services act, the path forward is clear. They must invest in proactive governance, build collaborative partnerships, and embed transparency into every layer of operations. By doing so, leaders can create a future that is shaped by compliance and empowered with trust, equity, and meaningful care.