Healthdirect Australia

From today, healthdirect will help even more people get the care they need, providing access to two new urgent care clinics in Sydney’s inner south and Canterbury Bankstown areas.  The clinics, in Green Square and Belmore, are accessible via the healthdirect helpline and will support people with emergency but non life-threatening conditions, avoiding unnecessary trips to a hospital emergency department (ED). There are now 10 NSW government urgent care clinics accessible via healthdirect. Staffed by GPs and nurses, the clinics can treat patients with conditions such as wounds that need stitches, suspected broken bones, and infections that might need antibiotics. Helpline callers are assessed by a registered nurse who will recommend the most appropriate care. Where this is urgent care, the nurse can book an appointment directly with the urgent care clinic nearest to the caller’s home. If more appropriate, they may be connected with NSW virtualKIDS or healthdirect’s virtual GP service.  By referring patients to urgent care or virtual care pathways healthdirect is helping to ease the pressure on busy EDs. Between December 2023 and February 2024, 23.2% of the more than 48,000 helpline callers nationally who originally planned to go to ED or call 000 were safely diverted to urgent care, a virtual ED or the healthdirect virtual GP service. More than 53% were safely redirected to a lower acuity alternative, such as an appointment with a GP.  For more information about the NSW urgent care clinic announcement visit NSW Health: https://lnkd.in/gRF7SFVS

Healthdirect is proud to partner with the Queensland Government to connect Queenslanders to their new Virtual Emergency Care Service via our digital Symptom Checker. Healthdirect operates the digital triage channel that gives Queenslanders access to the most appropriate care to meet their needs. After completing the Symptom Checker, consumers receive care recommendations based on their symptoms. This may include visiting a GP, pharmacist, or staying home when safe to self-care. Now, in urgent but non-life-threatening situations, Queenslanders can be connected to the Virtual Emergency Care Service. Healthdirect will continue to work with all States and Territories to improve access to care and reduce pressure on Emergency Departments. Read the Queensland Government's announcement of the new service here: https://lnkd.in/gg_N33NW Follow this link to the healthdirect Symptom Checker: https://lnkd.in/gSArQx9

This week, Healthdirect Australia welcomed two new directors to its Board, Peter Lewinsky AM and Sabrina Walsh, who began their terms yesterday, 1 July 2024. Mr Lewinsky’s broad private and public sector career spans investment banking, corporate and government advisory and stockbroking, both in Australia and internationally. In the past 30 years, he’s been appointed across various Victorian Government departments in governance roles. Ms Walsh was a clinical psychologist before moving into policy and leadership roles, including CIO and chief executive roles in Queensland and NSW. Until 2023, she was chair of the Sunshine Coast Hospital & Health Service Board. 

As Australia's leading provider of digital health services, Healthdirect Australia is committed to delivering high-quality, safe and accessible health information and advice to all Australians. We recognise that our operations have environmental, social and governance (ESG) impacts and we strive to manage them in a responsible and transparent manner. In FY24, we made significant progress in developing an ESG Framework, which was approved by the Board in June 2024. The framework aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and sets out our sustainability goals which incorporate elements of the broader social, economic and environmental sustainability goals that are also being pursued by our shareholders and partners. We believe that our commitment to ESG is not only a responsibility, but also an opportunity to create value for our stakeholders, including our customers, employees, partners and communities. By aligning our business strategy with ESG principles, we aim to deliver high-quality, accessible, and sustainable health care solutions that improve lives and well-being.

Healthdirect Australia welcomes Crohn’s and Colitis Australia as a new Information Partner. There are currently 100,000 people in Australia with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, collectively known as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and this number is expected to rise in the future. Crohn’s and Colitis Australia empowers people to live fearlessly while they help in the search for a cure for IBD. https://lnkd.in/gTGZ-ZVS Crohn’s & Colitis Australia  

Healthdirect recently hosted a Hackathon, with support from Amazon Web Services (AWS), to develop AI-driven solutions that generate personalised health care advice. The prototypes developed may be used after triage with nurses on the healthdirect helpline or at the end of healthdirect Symptom Checker online assessments. This care advice will help users know what to do to look after themselves or what to do if their symptoms worsen, empowering them with more information to make the right health decisions. Working in a secure AWS sandbox environment, two teams applied retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) AI techniques to Healthdirect’s extensive collection of health information to develop a prototype that could be taken forward into production. It was a stimulating two days, full of innovative thinking and problem solving to enhance virtual healthcare. Well done both teams! #ai #health #innovation

Drawing on case studies such as healthdirect's role as a virtual front door to the healthcare system and its impact on reducing visits to emergency departments, a research paper released in May by the Productivity Commission investigates the possibilities of digital technology in healthcare. The paper proposes that more efficient integration of digital technology into everyday healthcare practices could result in improved health outcomes, ease pressures on the health system and potentially save over $5 billion.  

The adoption of an AI-powered clinical decision support system (CDSS) on the healthdirect helpline has introduced greater accuracy to the triage process while safely replacing a traditional decision tree model, says Chief Medical Officer, Nirvana Luckraj. Chatting with Talking HealthTech at Australian Healthcare Week, Dr Luckraj said the CDSS – which also powers the online healthdirect Symptom Checker – allows more symptoms to be considered at the same time and continues to become more accurate, ensuring consumers get the most appropriate care. Check out the interview here: https://lnkd.in/gx63UgnX

New care options emerging in the health system are integrated into the healthdirect helpline, providing Australians with more ways to receive the medical care they need, when they need it. The new options offer expanded access to the healthdirect virtual GP call-back service, access to urgent care clinics and virtual EDs, providing more availability and convenience for patients, easier access to healthcare at less cost and potentially avoiding trips to busy hospital emergency departments. The healthdirect helpline received 1.3 million calls in the past year, with two thirds of calls received after-hours, and a significant proportion coming from rural, remote and regional areas where healthcare can be harder to access.   Find out more here: https://lnkd.in/gXtCmeMa

It was a big day at the Digital Health Festival today, with three speakers from Healthdirect Australia contributing to conversations about the future of virtual health care and connecting consumers to the right care. #DHF