Capita supports online healthcare service in Australia

LONDON, UK – Capita Healthcare Decisions has won a contract with Healthdirect Australia to help people check their symptoms online and receive personalized healthcare advice. With over 80% of Australians seeking health information online, Healthdirect Australia recognized the importance of ensuring that the information they are accessing is safe, relevant and trustworthy.

In response they developed the Healthdirect Symptom Checker – an online tool which allows people to check their symptoms and receive personalized advice on what healthcare action to take next.

Healthdirect Australia chose Capita’s proven Decision Management Software (DMS) to power Symptom Checker. The DMS will allow the organization to aggregate its own verified content and present it to consumers on www.healthdirect.gov.au through Capita’s Application Programming Interface (API). All health information in the Symptom Checker has been through a clinically governed quality assurance review.

Capita’s DMS and API have significantly reduced the time taken to populate the Symptom Checker flows with verified clinical content, and changes and updates required are simple to undertake.

Healthdirect Australia, an organization established by the Council of Australian Governments, designs and delivers a range of innovative services to provide every Australian with 24/7 access to the trusted information and advice they need to manage their own health and health-related issues.

Professor Anton Donker, chief information officer at Healthdirect Australia, said:

“An ageing population, the growth of digital by default and patients that are often living in rural or remote locations has made online access a vital part of the way we ensure that all Australians receive good quality health advice and assessment.

“The Symptom Checker places users at the centre of decision-making by guiding them to the appropriate healthcare option based on their current symptoms, helping them find local health services, and providing links to further information about their symptoms and possible causes.”

Richard Atkins (pictured), general manager, International for Capita Healthcare Decisions, said: “Our decision support software has been used by some of the world’s leading healthcare providers to power more than 85 million patient transactions. We revolutionized access to 24 hour health support and advice here in the UK, but our systems are also now being used as far afield as Australia, Ghana and Brazil, making Capita Healthcare Decisions a real UK export success story.

“We strive, constantly, to ensure not only that our own clinical content continues to set best clinical practice but that our applications work in harmony with the wide range of systems in use in public and private healthcare across the world.”