The federal government's National Health and Hospital Reform Commission is set to finish its nationwide public consultations in Hobart next week.
After receiving more than 500 submissions, the commission is three months from delivering its interim report on health reform to federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon.
Commission head Christine Bennett said the lack of access to primary care providers, such as GPs, was a bigger issue for most submitters than hospital waiting lists.
"Once or twice in your life, you or someone in your family might be on a waiting list but every year, every month, every week people are trying to access primary care to manage their health," she said.
"Interestingly, people have said, look, one of the big things is we don't want a system that is all about sickness, we also want it to be about wellness.
"There was feedback that good health and wellbeing should be as much a focus of the system as treating diseases."
Dr Bennett said creating electronic medical records available to patients and medical professionals was a key consideration for the health system's future.
"We have amazing communication technology prevalent throughout our society ... and yet we still haven't conquered the electronic health record that an individual can access and provide access to the carers that they might have.
"It will be one of the key focuses of our report to say ... the most important health information you can have is your health information."
Dr Bennett said frontline emergency workers told the commission of a system under pressure.
They said moving patients through emergency departments was increasingly difficult because beds were occupied by people awaiting places in aged care or community facilities.
She said questions were raised the commonwealth's hospital funding to the states and territories, with suggestions money should be linked to outcomes rather than dished out in blocks.
"The commission is definitely looking at the notion of activity-based funding as well as paying for performance and outcome," Dr Bennett said.
The largest challenges facing the health system were an ageing population, declining labour market and ballooning obesity and diabetes rates, she said.
