Our AHA theme for 2023 is ‘Fit for the Future’ and earlier this year we asked our staff “what fit for the future looked like in their areas of expertise and work”?
We want to focus on looking beyond where we are now, towards where we want to be and how we will get there together. AHA manages several core preparedness and response programs that are funded through member subscriptions while we also have non-subscription programs which are funded through external grants and other means.
With this in mind, I wanted to give you a bit more background into what we, at AHA, are aiming to focus on in 2023 and into 2024.
Surveillance
The surveillance team, led by Dr Bronwyn Hendry, is focusing on building capacity.
They acknowledge there is a skills shortage in Australia for animal and biosecurity professionals. For example, the Masters of Veterinary Public Health Programs at the Universities in Sydney and Melbourne have ceased AND, at a time when vector borne diseases are becoming more important, there are no longer any standalone entomology degrees in Australian universities.
In response to this, the surveillance team are upskilling our members involved in surveillance activities, most recently hosting and leading an entomology workshop in Orange which saw 20 professionals from across Australia being able to identify different Cullicoides species.
In 2023, they are focusing on:
- Supporting detection of significant animal diseases by coordinating and managing Australia’s key animal health surveillance programs, including veterinary investigations, laboratory expertise, and reporting mechanisms.
- Supporting market access for Australian livestock and livestock products through our programs such as the National Arbovirus Monitoring Program (NAMP).
- Working with our sister organisation, Plant Health Australia, and modernising our animal health database system which underpins our key surveillance programs, to make it fit for the future!
In addition to this, the surveillance team have just completed leading a national Japanese encephalitis delimiting surveillance project in pigs, and they have valued the contributions and cooperation from participating jurisdictional and industry members – in particular to all the private pig vets and jurisdictional and DAFF government vets who collected the samples to make this project a success.
EADRA
We know how important the EADRA is to all of us, as the core agreement made over 21 years ago between government and livestock industries. It is essential our signatories maintain trust of the EADRA and that we give certainty and provide flexibility in an EAD response. With emergency disease outbreaks, we need to always expect the unexpected; unfortunately, diseases don’t follow plans.
And that’s why the EADRA is a living document with annual updates and a major review conducted every 5 years. The program is being led by the extremely competent Dr Therese Wright.
The 5-year review, kicked off in 2022, has attracted more than 300 comments from stakeholders. They voiced 20 overarching themes and topics – all of which have been risk assessed, prioritized and timeframes identified.
The EADRA review working group, is now meeting once per month with up to three themes covered a month to discuss and develop recommendations to progress the issues raised.
We are excited to work with signatories to keep the EADRA current and fit for purpose so it continues to serve us well as the key national framework that sets out how we prepare for or respond to outbreaks of emergency animal diseases.
In 2023, we are looking further education of the Deed and are working with Plant Health Australia, on developing content to help the involved parties to more clearly understand what the Deeds are, what they aren’t and how they are used to ensure that together we can overcome pest and disease outbreaks as quickly as possible with as little impact to the bottom dollar of our producers and growers.
AUSVETPLAN
The AUSVETPLAN is continually improving, and the team, now led by Dr Mark Cozens, are very optimistic for the future. Last year we accelerated our review process due to extraordinary circumstances of numerous disease threats. We received mixed reviews on this process and noted the challenges of tight deadlines to provide input while members had to manage competing work priorities within available resources.
We have learned lessons from this rapid review process and we want to take further steps to make for both effective and efficient reviews.
We want to enhance and build our resource pool by identifying not only government and industry representatives, but also veterinary students, consultants and retirees that can actively contribute to manual development or review.
Mark continues to deliver on the AUSVETPLAN workplan and has noted that the technical reference group is supportive of the reviews planned in 2023-2024 and that it is expected this can be achieved with currently available resources.
Biosecurity
The Biosecurity team, led by Dr Rob Barwell, is focused on supporting our members in meeting their ‘normal commitments’ for 2023 by strengthening on-farm biosecurity practices (including disease and parasite management) and linking to benefits arising from EAD prevention, improved animal health and welfare and productivity.
The team continues to support livestock producers managing priority endemic diseases by providing systems and tools to capture, report and manage these via the National Sheep Health Monitoring Project, new forms of technology and farm biosecurity plans.
We want to ensure all members have contemporary biosecurity plans and strategies in place. This is one of the requirements of EADRA signatories. Industry members have recently been completing their Industry Performance Benchmarking tool and AHA is looking forward to the completion of this vital piece of work.
Training
We continue to receive a lot of feedback about AHA’s training program.
The training program, led by Ben Byrne, plans its activities 18 months ahead but last year we had an unprecedented and an extraordinary number of requests both from members and non-members outside of scope of budget, workplan and resourcing, but the training team were still able to support our members in building your response capability across the three key national EAD response roles (CCEAD, NMG and LLI).
Simply throwing more money at training was not the solution, as resources were constrained and the labour market was very tight to find the right professionals quickly.
So we are looking at enhanced delivery through scenario-based training and seeing what can we do differently and how we can better meet your needs on your tight budget. I say your budget because training is one of our core programs which is funded from your subscriptions. Member subscriptions over the last several years have only just kept pace with inflation. To increase demands for more training either we increase total subscriptions and/or redirect from other core programs or we keep the status quo.
There is no easy or simple solution here and we are keen to hear how we can better support your EAD training needs.
Communications
Our Comms team, led by Dr Ian McDonald, are fantastic storytellers and content creators, taking information in all its forms and making it readable and digestible – aiming for quality over quantity and tailoring information to the platform and audience.
In 2023 we are moving away from print products to how we can enhance our digital communications and platforms, where metrics can be tracked, and communications can be designed with impact for that target audience.
Additionally, AHA is enhancing its marketing and promotion of our major programs and products.
We have some exciting new products on the horizon, one of which is developing an AHA podcast focusing on livestock health issues in collaboration with members and stakeholders.
Project management/member and customer value.
Through imbedding a disciplined project management approach and practice into our operations and culture has enabled AHA to effectively prioritize and manage projects and resources to ensure delivery of value to our staff, members and stakeholders and support the delivery of AHA’s strategic plan.
I have been directly involved in this process and I am confident that we are funding and resourcing the right things at the right time.
The Member and Customer Value team, led by Jennifer Sullivan, are the lead in the concept phase of the framework to ensure that any proposals and concepts are in-line with the strategic plan and meet the needs and priorities of our members.
Other focus areas for AHA
Finally, at an organisation level what are we focused on?
There is AHA’s constitutional review coming up this year and we’ll soon be taking a mid-term strategic plan review, which will also involve members;
Like many organisations AHA is reviewing its cybersecurity risks and strategy.
Our Board of Directors are keen to ensure we, as an organisation, remain agile, adapt to changing situations not just in our natural environment but our cyber environment as well, and we continue to meet the needs of you, our members.
If you ever have any questions or comments on our organisation and business priorities and programs, don’t hesitate to reach out to myself, the GMs or Jennifer as our Head of Member Value.