{
  "@type": "ProcurementIndex",
  "edition": {
    "edition": "Q3 2026",
    "edition_slug": "q3-2026",
    "edition_label": "Q3 2026 · inaugural edition",
    "is_inaugural": true,
    "publisher": "Cadence",
    "publisher_url": "https://gocadence.ai",
    "data_window_start": "2026-07-15",
    "data_window_end": "2026-07-23",
    "data_window_label": "15–23 July 2026",
    "date_published": "2026-07-23",
    "next_edition_month": "October 2026",
    "temporal_coverage": "2026-07-15/2026-07-23",
    "spatial_coverage": [
      "Australia",
      "New Zealand"
    ],
    "licence": "CC BY 4.0",
    "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
    "contact_email": "hello@gocadence.ai"
  },
  "key_findings": [
    "318 named ANZ healthcare operators tracked, spanning ~15,900 sites across 14 segments and two countries.",
    "15 of 318 organisations (4.7%) sat in an identifiable AI-voice or scribe buying window in the 9-day inaugural period.",
    "Ambient AI scribes are being procured ahead of patient-facing voice — 3 of the largest live processes in the window were scribe or clinical-documentation buys.",
    "Aged care leads every leading indicator: 17 contact-centre hiring signals, 11 executive appointments and 8 ownership changes — more than any other segment.",
    "45 of the tracked operators are private-equity-held — nearly a fifth of the universe — a group whose ownership transitions reset technology capital plans."
  ],
  "universe": {
    "total_operators": 303,
    "additional_owners_tracked": 15,
    "headline_total": 318,
    "total_sites_estimate": 15900,
    "by_segment": [
      {
        "segment": "Aged & community care",
        "organisations": 102,
        "sites": 3273
      },
      {
        "segment": "Primary Health Networks (commissioners)",
        "organisations": 31,
        "sites": null
      },
      {
        "segment": "Public health services / LHD / HHS / Te Whatu Ora",
        "organisations": 29,
        "sites": 552
      },
      {
        "segment": "GP corporates & primary care groups",
        "organisations": 23,
        "sites": 1530
      },
      {
        "segment": "Dental groups & DSOs",
        "organisations": 23,
        "sites": 1180
      },
      {
        "segment": "Private & day hospitals",
        "organisations": 15,
        "sites": 369
      },
      {
        "segment": "Allied health groups",
        "organisations": 14,
        "sites": 1279
      },
      {
        "segment": "Veterinary groups",
        "organisations": 13,
        "sites": 706
      },
      {
        "segment": "After-hours & telehealth operators",
        "organisations": 11,
        "sites": 14
      },
      {
        "segment": "Imaging networks",
        "organisations": 9,
        "sites": 793
      },
      {
        "segment": "Pathology networks",
        "organisations": 8,
        "sites": 5368
      },
      {
        "segment": "Specialist networks",
        "organisations": 12,
        "sites": 338
      },
      {
        "segment": "Health insurers (member contact operations)",
        "organisations": 7,
        "sites": 480
      },
      {
        "segment": "Triage & medical deputising",
        "organisations": 6,
        "sites": 15
      }
    ]
  },
  "geography": {
    "australia": {
      "operators": 265,
      "share_pct": 83
    },
    "new_zealand": {
      "operators": 53,
      "share_pct": 17
    }
  },
  "ownership": [
    {
      "owner_type": "Not-for-profit / charitable",
      "operators": 59
    },
    {
      "owner_type": "Private equity–held",
      "operators": 45
    },
    {
      "owner_type": "Privately held",
      "operators": 31
    },
    {
      "owner_type": "Listed (ASX/NZX)",
      "operators": 27
    },
    {
      "owner_type": "Corporate subsidiary",
      "operators": 19
    }
  ],
  "signals": {
    "by_class": [
      {
        "signal_class": "Contact-centre / patient-access hiring",
        "count": 46
      },
      {
        "signal_class": "Transformation & AI programme announcements",
        "count": 31
      },
      {
        "signal_class": "Executive appointments (CIO/CDO/COO/CX)",
        "count": 31
      },
      {
        "signal_class": "Ownership change / M&A",
        "count": 27
      },
      {
        "signal_class": "Open tenders & procurement notices",
        "count": 5
      },
      {
        "signal_class": "Contract renewal windows",
        "count": 6
      },
      {
        "signal_class": "Contract awards",
        "count": 3
      },
      {
        "signal_class": "Published phone-access complaints",
        "count": 6
      }
    ],
    "aged_care_leadership": {
      "hiring_signals": 17,
      "executive_appointments": 11,
      "ownership_changes": 8
    },
    "imaging_hiring_signals": 10
  },
  "in_market": {
    "organisations_in_market": 15,
    "universe_scored": 318,
    "rate_pct": 4.7,
    "threshold": "one high-weight signal (an open tender or confirmed procurement) or corroborating evidence across two independent signal families",
    "by_segment": [
      {
        "segment": "Aged & community care",
        "in_market": 6
      },
      {
        "segment": "Public health services",
        "in_market": 5
      },
      {
        "segment": "GP corporates",
        "in_market": 2
      },
      {
        "segment": "Pathology",
        "in_market": 1
      },
      {
        "segment": "Imaging",
        "in_market": 1
      }
    ]
  },
  "headline_finding": {
    "title": "Scribes before voice",
    "summary": "Ambient AI scribes are being bought through formal procurement channels ahead of patient-facing voice. Three of the largest live processes in the window were scribe or clinical-documentation procurements — including a national ambient-scribe panel in New Zealand with award pending, and an enterprise scribe tender at an Australian hospital and health service. Patient-facing voice appears almost entirely as contact-centre and telephony modernisation: six federal contract-renewal windows during the period covered contact-centre platforms, telephony services and unified-communications migrations, not conversational AI."
  },
  "next_quarter": [
    {
      "title": "New Zealand national ambient-scribe panel award",
      "detail": "Pending at the close of this period; the award gates a substantial tranche of downstream licences."
    },
    {
      "title": "Australian state scribe panels",
      "detail": "At least one state health procurement panel remains undecided well past its published decision estimate — a delay that is itself a signal about institutional caution on clinical AI."
    },
    {
      "title": "Policy tailwind",
      "detail": "The third National Policy Roadmap for AI in Healthcare (July 2026) explicitly recommends an AI-enabled conversational 'front door' for national health lines. Policy endorsement historically precedes public-sector procurement by two to four quarters."
    }
  ],
  "methodology_summary": "Fixed universe of 318 named ANZ healthcare organisations, assembled from association membership lists, government provider registers, annual reports and ASX/NZX filings. Daily automated collection across AusTender OCDS, New Zealand GETS, state procurement portals, national and trade press and public job boards; twice-weekly researched sweep for material outside those feeds. Every signal scored, deduplicated and attributed to a named organisation. Individual organisations are never named in this publication except where the underlying record is already public. Aggregate counts only.",
  "citation": "Cadence. (2026). The ANZ Healthcare AI Procurement Index, Q3 2026. https://gocadence.ai/procurement-index",
  "licence": {
    "name": "CC BY 4.0",
    "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
    "attribution_required": true,
    "preferred_attribution": "Cadence. (2026). The ANZ Healthcare AI Procurement Index, Q3 2026. https://gocadence.ai/procurement-index"
  },
  "endpoints": {
    "canonical_hub": "https://gocadence.ai/procurement-index",
    "canonical_archive": "https://gocadence.ai/procurement-index/q3-2026",
    "data_json": "https://gocadence.ai/procurement-index/data.json",
    "data_csv": "https://gocadence.ai/procurement-index/data.csv"
  }
}