At the ACHSM Asia Pacific Health Leadership Congress, held at the Cairns Convention Centre from 28 to 30 October 2026, health service leaders from Australia, New Zealand and the Asia Pacific kept coming back to one message: health systems can’t digitise or restructure their way out of a workforce problem.

Across thirteen sessions, the services making progress were the ones that asked their people what was wrong and then built fairer, more transparent systems around the answers. One territory tertiary hospital is on track to lift junior doctor retention from 49% to 88% over two years after asking doctors why they were leaving. Rural workforce data showed that 47.1% of doctors with more than a year of rural mid-career work went on to become senior medical officers, compared with about 2% of those who stayed under six months.

Speakers also reminded leaders that funding cycles are far shorter than the timeframes over which disease burden and community need change, and that “historical utilisation is not healthcare need”. On AI, the consensus was that the technology will be the easy part and the real work lies in people, process and governance. Our white paper, Keep the People You Have: Leading Health Systems Through the Workforce Squeeze, brings what we heard together into five themes: retention, planning from need, belonging, integration, and AI’s effect on scope of practice. It also covers practical steps health services can take next. Download your copy below.

Download your copy of the white paper.