AI, Health and Wellbeing

About

Should your therapist be a chatbot? This stream focuses on how the digital health landscape is being impacted by AI and other technology, read more about the research being undertaken in this stream below.

Who’s Asking? Consent for AI medical scribe use in Australian healthcare

In July 2026, CAIDE awarded seed funding to researchers exploring the problems of AI scribes in clinical settings.

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A Human Values-Aware Framework for AI-Driven Lifestyle Decision Support in Type 2 Diabetes

Researchers were awarded CAIDE seed funding in July 2026 to create a Human Values-Aware Decision Support Framework that combines behavioural science, value-sensitive design and AI using Type 2 Diabetes as a case study. The aim is to create a system which provides more personalised, culturally appropriate and trustworthy recommendations.

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Who should decide? Testing a Human-First Alternative to Recommendation-Centric Medical AI

AI tools hold tremendous potential to transform healthcare. Yet while many models often perform well in controlled benchmarking evaluations, safe and reliable performance in real-world clinical settings remains difficult to achieve. This CAIDE seed funded project tests a human-first approach to healthcare AI design and deployment. The researchers aim to generate early empirical data to inform critical decisions as to whether the 'human in the loop' paradigms are sufficient as a risk control in medical AI regulation.

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Patient Data and Training AI: The OAIC View

In September 2025, CAIDE convened a panel discussion of experts from law, computing and health to discuss the recent determination of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. The panel discussed the context of AI in clinical research, issues concerning the Privacy Act and concerns around approaches to health data de-identification.

Watch the Video and Download the Handout

Mental Health Apps Report

CAIDE Director Prof Jeannie Marie Paterson and CAIDE Affiliate Swetha Meenal Ananthapadmanaban wrote a Dec 2023 report on 'Data Privacy and Consumer Protection Practices of Automated Mental Health, Wellbeing and Mindfulness Apps'. The report explored the growing use of mental health and mindfulness apps, discussing concerns around data privacy, observed dark patterns, contracting practices, consumer assessments and recognised best practices.

Download the Report [PDF 17.1 MB]

Precision Pragmatic Trials For Mental Health Research

CAIDE is also involved in the 'Enabling Precision Pragmatic Trials for Mental Health Research' project, with a funding period running from 2025-2028.  Involved in this are Theme Leader A/Prof Dom Dwyer and Director Prof Jeannie Paterson.

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AI, Health & Safety and the Workplace

CAIDE recently released a report, entitled The Slippery Slope to Function Creep: Monitoring Employees' Workplace Performance through AI Workplace Health, Safety and Wellbeing Tools, written by CAIDE RA Lily Ballot-Jones. The report explores the risk of 'function creep' occurring with health and safety-oriented surveillance measures.

Read the Full Report (PDF 886.5 KB)

Theme Leaders

This theme is led by Abi Ward (CAIDE Project Coordinator) alongside A/Prof Caitlin Hitchcock and A/Prof Dominic Dwyer of the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences