New contractual arrangements for veterans' hospital access, a new health reimbursement item for robotic surgery, and the advent of personalised health record packages underline a looming electronic transformation of health services.

The old days of having separate repatriation hospitals for ageing military veterans are well and truly gone. Nowadays the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) has a standing invitation (the tender you have when it's not quite a formal tender) for virtually all of Australia's private hospitals to proffer individual fee schedules for effectively the whole gamut of hospital health services, including mental health.