**5. Conclusions**

The reporting of data on mental health service use in Australia is evolving. While large administrative data sets are a valuable source of epidemiological data, traditionally long lead times have often limited their utility for governments responding to time sensitive issues. The use of administrative data to inform policy responses to emerging challenges, notably, disaster recovery and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, has required governments to adapt existing protocols, particularly relating to data timeframes, to meet these new needs.

The COVID-19 mental health services dashboard project and associated reporting has involved new levels of data sharing and communication between Australian and state and territory governments, and non-governmen<sup>t</sup> organizations on the utilization of mental health services in Australia. The project has demonstrated willingness and ability of these organizations to implement cooperative data sharing arrangements that have the potential to lead to ongoing benefits that extend beyond the pandemic.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, A.Y. and S.S.; methodology, A.Y. and S.S.; formal analysis, S.S., C.H., E.L. and J.B.; investigation, A.Y.; data curation, A.Y., S.S. and J.B.; writing—original draft preparation, F.S.; writing—review and editing, A.Y., S.S., M.J., C.H. and E.L.; visualization, S.S., C.H. and E.L. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** Funding for this project is provided by the Australian Government Department of Health under the National Suicide and Self-harm Monitoring Project.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable. Analyses involve anonymous administrative data.

**Data Availability Statement:** The de-identified unit record datasets used to generate the present analyses are not publicly available. Further data related to the mental health COVID-19 dashboards is available at https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/mental-health-services/mental-health-services-inaustralia/report-contents/mental-health-impact-of-COVID-19 (accessed on 5 October 2021).

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
