We’re thrilled to announce that MuleSoft is in the final stages with the Infosec Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) to certify that our products and platforms are secure for use in the Australian public sector. The certification, anticipated mid 2022, will give further peace of mind to MuleSoft’s customers and partners that their data is safe during their digital transformation initiatives, allowing more government departments to innovate faster and deliver superior customer experiences to citizens.
State of the public sector
Government agencies worldwide face a digital transformation imperative to meet increasing demands, citizen expectations, and accelerate efficiencies. Despite an increasing number of public services being made available online, the public sector is still often branded as slow adopters of technology. Although this reputation may be somewhat justified, it’s not from lack of spending. Gartner reported that the Australian government increased its IT spending at all levels in FY2021, with IT services growing to $6.4 billion. However, our research found that Australians were the least satisfied with the quality of government services, with 36% of Australians claiming they’ve encountered a negative experience, and 72% saying the government’s customer experiences were the most disconnected.
Every industry is constantly challenged with doing more with less, and that’s especially true for the public sector. Just by virtue of receiving public funding, government services face much more scrutiny over how money is spent compared to the private sector. That means when a department takes on a new digital transformation initiative, they have to get it right the first time or risk losing the public’s trust.
Security concerns rising
According to our IT and business alignment barometer report, concern over security risks is the biggest factor holding both public and private organizations back from digital transformation. Additionally, our consumer connectivity insights report found that 86% of Australians don’t trust government departments to share personal information with each other. If we want to encourage more public sector departments to shift their services to digital platforms, we need to give these departments and consumers alike the reassurance that their personal data is safe. With our journey to achieve IRAP certification underway, MuleSoft hopes to alleviate some of this indecision preventing government departments from integrating their datasets.
By adopting an API-led connectivity approach, departments can build and repurpose APIs that enable them to apply automated, layered, and intelligent security across every domain and service on a single, unified platform. For the public sector in particular APIs enable agencies to modernize legacy IT systems, improve citizen engagement, and boost employee productivity all while establishing an efficient ongoing solution.
Achieving IRAP certification will provide additional reassurance that our customers’ data is secured, though MuleSoft is no stranger to the security protocols within Australia’s public sector.
Integrating data to improve healthcare outcomes and experiences in NSW
New South Wales Health Pathology (NSWHP) was initially looking to integrate the data stored away in silos to deliver faster and more accurate results to patients. NSWHP worked with MuleSoft to take an API-led approach, integrating 360 testing devices from its health facilities to systems across its 60 laboratories. The organization used its APIs as building blocks to securely connect its Point of Care devices to electronic health record systems containing the patient’s pathology results, giving every employee a 360-degree view of their patients.
NSWHP also needed to securely route complicated clinical messages for millions of test results between state and federal health platforms and its lab network. Using MuleSoft’s HL7 Connector, NSWP’s teams can pull messages from the HL7 feed from labs into an Observations API to detect whether additional tests are required, giving patients results back faster and offering an additional layer of personalized care.
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for the public sector to shift services online while maintaining the integrity of citizens’ personal information. We’re excited to be on this journey with IRAP to certify the security of our platforms so we can assist more government departments in their own digital transformation journeys that will lead to better quality services for all Australians.
