Health and Aged Care

NT Government and Healthdirect Australia provide new telehealth service

Eliza Sayon Dec 20, 2021

< 1 min read

In order to bolster telehealth care services across the Northern Territory, the NT Government has partnered with the national public health information service Healthdirect Australia.

The new partnership will see to a new Healthdirect video call service that will support existing telehealth services in the Territory, delivering a single, easy to use platform for clinical consultations.

“The Territory Labor Government is delivering more health services to ensure patients secure access to quality healthcare regardless of where they live,” Health Minister Natasha Fyles said.

Healthdirect’s new video call service will be implemented into the public in two stages, with stage one already underway.

Under stage one, ten specialities and services will be live on the new video platform. These new specialties and services include the Royal Darwin and Palmerston Hospital’s Women Children and Youth Division, RDPH Allied Health and the Central Australia Medical Retrievals and Consultation Centre.

Meanwhile, stage two of the new video call service is expected to expand the rollout to all remaining relevant specialties and services across NT Health.

Hence, all existing NT Health telehealth services are scheduled to be transferred to the new platform by February 2022.

“Telehealth services have played a massive role in boosting our response to this pandemic and will continue to be a vital tool into the future,” Minister Fyles said.

“The Territory was an early adopter of telehealth and other technology due to the Territory’s vast geographical spread and small population.”

The partnership between the NT Government and Healthdirect Australia for the new video call service has the capability to enhance telehealth consults with COVID-19 patients being cared for in the community and at the Centre for National Resilience.

The Healthdirect video call service is on track to host more than one million video calls across Australia during 2021-22.

Source: Minister for Health Media Release

Eliza Sayon

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Eliza is a content producer and editor at Public Spectrum. She is an experienced writer on topics related to the government and to the public, as well as stories that uplift and improve the community.