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    Q3 2026 · inaugural editionData window: 15–23 July 2026 · Next edition not yet scheduled

    The ANZ Healthcare AI Procurement Index.

    Aggregated signals across 318 named multi-site healthcare organisations in Australia and New Zealand — the organisations large enough to run centralised phone operations, and therefore large enough to buy AI voice, ambient scribe or contact-centre capability at enterprise scale.

    Aggregated signals; method published.

    Published by Cadence — independent AI voice advisory for ANZ healthcare networks.Cite thisJSONCSVLicence: CC BY 4.0
    Key findingsQ3 2026
    1. 01

      318 named ANZ healthcare organisations tracked (operators and their owner groups), spanning ~15,900 sites across 14 segments and two countries.

    2. 02

      15 of 318 organisations (4.7%) sat in an identifiable AI-voice or scribe buying window in the 9-day inaugural period.

    3. 03

      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.

    4. 04

      Aged care leads every leading indicator: 17 contact-centre hiring signals, 11 executive appointments and 8 ownership changes — more than any other segment.

    5. 05

      45 of the tracked operators are private-equity-held, about one in seven of the universe.

    Chapter 01

    The universe we track

    Operators by segment

    303 operators · ~15,900 sites
    • Aged & community care102 · 3,273 sites
    • Primary Health Networks (commissioners)31
    • Public health services / LHD / HHS / Te Whatu Ora29 · 552 sites
    • GP corporates & primary care groups23 · 1,530 sites
    • Dental groups & DSOs23 · 1,180 sites
    • Private & day hospitals15 · 369 sites
    • Allied health groups14 · 1,279 sites
    • Veterinary groups13 · 706 sites
    • After-hours & telehealth operators11 · 14 sites
    • Imaging networks9 · 793 sites
    • Pathology networks8 · 5,368 sites
    • Specialist networks12 · 338 sites
    • Health insurers (member contact operations)7 · 480 sites
    • Triage & medical deputising6 · 15 sites

    Plus 15 PE / consolidator owners tracked separately, for a headline total of 318 entities referenced.

    Geography

    AU 83%
    NZ 17%

    265 Australian · 53 New Zealand

    Ownership structure

    • Not-for-profit / charitable59
    • Private equity–held45
    • Privately held31
    • Listed (ASX/NZX)27
    • Corporate subsidiary19

    About one in seven tracked operators sits in a PE portfolio. Ownership transitions can reset capital plans.

    Chapter 02

    Headline finding

    Scribes are being procured ahead of voice.

    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.

    Read: the buying committee is meeting AI first in the consult room, not on the phone line. If a network has already bought a scribe, that decision may set precedents for voice.

    Live procurement processes in window
    • Scribe / clinical-documentation procurements3
      incl. NZ national panel (award pending)
    • Federal contact-centre / telephony renewals6
      modernisation, not conversational AI
    • Open tenders & procurement notices5
      across all classes
    • Contract awards recorded3
      in window
    Chapter 03

    Where demand pressure is concentrated

    Signals recorded in the window, by class

    • Contact-centre / patient-access hiring46
    • Transformation & AI programme announcements31
    • Executive appointments (CIO/CDO/COO/CX)31
    • Ownership change / M&A27
    • Open tenders & procurement notices5
    • Contract renewal windows6
    • Contract awards3
    • Published phone-access complaints6
    Segment spotlight

    Aged care leads every leading indicator.

    • Contact-centre hiring
      most of any segment
      17
    • Executive appointments
      CIO/CDO/COO/CX
      11
    • Ownership changes
      M&A / transitions
      8

    The Aged Care Act 2024 commenced on 1 November 2025. Changes like this, and the Support at Home transition, can raise inbound call volume.

    Imaging is the second hiring hotspot — 10 signals, driven by centralised booking-centre build-outs, several tied to recent consolidation. Executive appointments: 31 relevant appointments were recorded in the nine-day window.

    Chapter 04

    The in-market rate

    Applying our scoring threshold (one high-weight signal, such as an open tender or confirmed procurement, or corroborating evidence across two independent signal families), the organisations in an active buying window at the close of the period are counted below by segment.

    15 / 318
    organisations in an identifiable buying window — a 4.7% in-market rate.

    We publish this figure as a market baseline. In this window, 4.7% of tracked organisations showed a public buying signal. Private buying is not visible to this method.

    In-market organisations by segment

    • Aged & community care6
    • Public health services5
    • GP corporates2
    • Pathology1
    • Imaging1

    Total: 15 of 318 tracked organisations.

    Chapter 05

    What we expect next quarter

    01

    New Zealand national ambient-scribe panel award

    Pending at the close of this period; the award gates a substantial tranche of downstream licences.

    02

    Australian state scribe panels

    At least one state health procurement panel remains undecided past its published decision estimate.

    03

    Policy tailwind

    The third National Policy Roadmap for AI in Healthcare (July 2026) recommends an AI-enabled conversational 'front door' for national health lines. Source: Australian Ageing Agenda.

    Chapter M

    Methodology, limits & corrections

    What this index is

    A census of observable public signals against a fixed, named universe, collected on a consistent daily schedule and scored with a published threshold.

    What it is not

    Not a survey, a vendor-market-share estimate, or a claim about deals we cannot see. Private procurement — the majority of commercial healthcare buying — is invisible to this method by construction. Signal counts reflect what became public, not total market activity.

    Known limits

    The inaugural window is nine days, which is short. Job-posting signals are perishable and skew toward organisations that advertise publicly. Site-count estimates are drawn from public sources and change with consolidation. Government procurement is systematically over-represented relative to private buying because it is published by law.

    Corrections

    We publish corrections openly. If your organisation appears mis-classified in our universe, or a signal we have recorded is wrong, write to hello@gocadence.ai and we will correct it in the next edition and note the change.

    For journalists

    Brand and citation information is available on the Cadence brand facts page. Media enquiries to hello@gocadence.ai.

    For developers & AI agents

    The full dataset is available as JSON and CSV. See the Public Data API for the OpenAPI spec and the MCP server at gocadence.ai/mcp. Related: the ANZ Health Voice & AI Register and the Vendor Trust Tracker.

    Independence

    How we're paid. You pay the fixed fees in our pricing table. If you select a platform, that vendor may also pay Cadence a success fee, at the same rate whichever platform you choose. Before an engagement starts we tell you which vendors we have fee agreements with. Platform licences are paid to the vendor directly. No vendor sees this index before publication, and no vendor pays to appear in it.

    Chapter D

    Data & citation

    Endpoint

    Structured data (JSON)

    Every figure on this page, machine-readable. Stable schema across editions.

    Open data.json
    Endpoint

    Flat table (CSV)

    Same figures, tabular. Import into a sheet, notebook, or your data warehouse.

    Download data.csv
    Licence

    CC BY 4.0

    Reuse the data anywhere — reporting, presentations, models, briefings. Attribution required. Preferred attribution below.

    Licence terms
    Cite this

    Cadence. (2026). The ANZ Healthcare AI Procurement Index, Q3 2026. https://gocadence.ai/procurement-index

    The live data behind this index

    ANZ Health Voice & AI Register

    Public tender and contract records from this index appear in the Register, sortable by expiry window, category and country. Free, open API, CC BY 4.0.

    Open the register
    For network leaders

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    Editions
    • Q3 2026 edition — inaugural
      Data window 15–23 July 2026
      Viewing this edition
    • Next edition not yet scheduled