Javier Ribalta: A lot goes on behind the scenes of a certified pandemic

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This is the perspective of a public servant who was in the room where it happened.

Services Australia staff rallied unlike they had ever done before when the COVID-19 pandemic reached our shores in 2020. Javier Ribalta PSM, an ACT-based project-management expert who played a central role in the set-up of the digital vaccine certificate, watched as his team and fellow public servants responded to the public health emergency with mobilisation and energy that filled him with pride.

“We’ve had to think outside the box, not only in very tight timeframes but also think about the entire scope of need from the population,” Ribalta told The Mandarin.

“As much as the project was about the great success of the online, self-serve proof of vaccination mechanism through MyGov, there are some that don’t have that access or want to have that access. So we also need to consider the impact on telephony and on other channels,” he said.

On Australia Day, Ribalta was recognised with a Public Service Medal (PSM) for his “exemplary leadership” in the coordination and negotiation between federal, state and territory governments, which saw the COVID-19 digital certificate integrated into check-in apps.

“Mr Ribalta’s contribution ensured continuity and played an important role in achieving core deliverables for Services Australia, including delivery of a cohesive program to deliver core functionality of the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR),” the meritorious citation for the public servant read.

Ribalta said the mission to ensure vaccine statuses were registered in a single repository might sound complicated and highly systems-related in nature but there was a more important objective underlying it all. That was to ensure any person could access their proof of vaccination, quickly and with as few steps as possible, even if they did not have an existing Medicare account with MyGov such as in the case of non-citizens.

“We also had to think and implement the solution for those that don’t have a Medicare entitlement because they were still in the country, many of them could not leave, they were also being vaccinated, and they needed that evidence to move in the community or move between borders,” Ribalta explained.

“I had a core team of five to seven [staff] but I was also heavily relying on dozens of people across the agency and all their expertise in ICT, in customer-centric design, in service delivery.”

The Argentine-qualified lawyer migrated to Australia in 2006 and has worked for the federal government for 12 years. Initially, he had a rough plan to work his way into an agency aligned with the immigration portfolio to leverage his brief stint as a migration lawyer. But rewarding work and a great team culture saw him stay on.

“At the time, I joined [the Medicare team] thinking that I wanted to have the experience. I just wanted to get my foot in the door for the government and my intention was to move quickly into another agency,” Ribalta said.

“I was very impressed with the work that Medicare did, then I saw the iterations with the Department of Human Services, and now Services Australia, and I just liked the work that is done here so much that I haven’t been able to leave,” he said.

In his current SES Band 1 role at Services Australia, Ribalta leads a team as a digital health branch national manager. Prior to being promoted to this role four months ago, the senior mandarin was a director for Medicare’s COVID-19 vaccination readiness initiative.

Ribalta put his hand up to lead this team after returning from three weeks’ parental leave after his wife gave birth to a baby girl in 2020. His daughter is now two-and-a-half, and the span of her entire life has also been the same length of time he dedicated to the commonwealth’s pandemic response in various capacities.

“I have a sense of serving the community — I need that connection. For the work I do, I need that purpose, and this agency has given me that all along,” Ribalta said.

Commenting on his PSM, the public servant noted he would be accepting the award with pride and humility because he felt the hard yards he was being recognised for were shared with a much wider team. Fielding calls at 5am on a Sunday was not uncommon for all those Ribalta said he worked alongside, and their families also sacrificed a lot to make everything possible.

“I believe that I’m receiving [the recognition] as the face of many people and many families like mine, that had to provide support and cope with, at times, limited availability from us on what was long days, long nights, weekends and getting phone calls at all hours,” he said.

Ribalta also acknowledged the multi-agency collaboration that was crucial to standing up the digital vaccine certificates, calling out the support of the Department of Health and Aged Care, who were the overall policy-owners, and the Australian Digital Health Agency. which manages the MyGov functionality known as My Health Records.

Heading home after the #summer break? Take your #health information with you wherever you go. With #MyHealthRecord your important health information is secure, in one place, and available whenever it's needed. Visit https://t.co/VZ9G6ET5mX to learn more. pic.twitter.com/gVxuDOtzYj

— Digital Health AU (@AuDigitalHealth) January 22, 2023

Managing a constant workload on a day-to-day basis in a context that seemed so unprecedented was something Ribalta says he thinks about often. To deal with this he chose two public servants to work alongside him and liaise with the experts in the agency to clear urgent tasks, and ensure they did not become a distraction to delivering a product that would expedite the re-opening of Australia’s borders and some return to pre-pandemic ‘normal’.

“There were many unknowns throughout this process — How many vaccines? What type of vaccines? How many doses are going to be required? What vaccines will be ready first in the country? We were developing all of these [solutions] based on assumptions, because the work was happening on the go,” Ribalta said.

“We had a very good structure of ‘This is the people that deal with the day to day issues’, and even if we are overwhelmed on the day, no one else from the other team moves in.

“The other team had the responsibility of having proof of vaccination that will be fit-for-purpose, and that people will use.

“In the middle of all of this, I would pick up the phone, and anyone in the agency would be ready to help — that was an amazing feeling. It was pretty remarkable that you would pick up the phone, and everyone would be open to help,” he added.