Under the deal over 5,500 service providers and their online clinics in hospitals, medical centres and GP practices across Australia have been migrated across to the new Coviu-powered healthdirect Video Call as of 1 September.

“To realise the great potential of video access between health consumers and their care providers, we have worked collaboratively on designing the service with front line clinical and administrative staff at hospitals, PHNs and health networks to ensure this service works seamlessly with their existing workflows and suits their model of care,” says Karen Borg, CEO of Healthdirect Australia.

“healthdirect video call was developed by Healthdirect Australia to make it easy for healthcare providers to offer their services direct to patients via video consultation and integrate telehealth as an everyday part of a modern Australian health system.

“Our mission is to push telehealth forward in Australia. healthdirect Video Call is a simple, scalable and sustainable model for enabling better access to care. It’s strengthening our use of technology to provide more convenient access to care, in ways people now expect.”

Dr Silvia Pfeiffer, CEO and co-founder of Coviu said that the vast distance between healthcare providers and their patients often requires significant time, money and effort to overcome – and Coviu aims to combat this barrier by making video visits “the new standard of care”.

“Our goal is to bring fairer access to healthcare for all citizens, regardless of their location. I’m extremely pleased to be working with Healthdirect Australia on this important initiative which takes us one step closer to achieving that goal.

“While telehealth is a fantastic solution for those seeking aid, it’s often underutilised. Our partnership with Healthdirect will make quality healthcare more accessible to all Australians and help to bridge some of the barriers that exist when it comes to equal access.”