Key Points

• Digital Health service expertise
• Duty of candour
• Procurement expertise
• Rapid integration with existing teams
• Leadership
• Flexibility

Healthdirect Australia’s stated vision is to “To be a key part of a quality Australian health system by helping consumers manage their own health through leveraging technology to enable timely access to health and related services”.

Healthdirect Australia was established as a company jointly owned by the Commonwealth and a number of the States and Territories as part of the Council of Australian Government’s (COAG) 2006 Better Health for All Australians reform package. 

In 2016 Healthdirect Australia approached Dr Jean Challiner of Aspirations Consulting Ltd to engage in several pieces of work with them over a three week period. They required credible external clinical expertise as part of their assessment team for an OOH RFT stage procurement, Mental Health Gateway RFI stage procurement and also some expert consultancy for other projects relating to digital healthcare services accessed on line by consumers. In particular her expertise in Clinical Governance, Service Delivery and Workforce in these settings was sought as well as clinical expertise and experience in risk assessment.

Jean joined the Healthdirect Australia Team in Sydney and committed to the Probity Plan (Duty of candour). She rapidly integrated with the team members for the different work streams she was involved in and engaged in meaningful debate, exchange of ideas and challenge with them. She managed her own time both seeking and offering advice as needed and working as part of the broader team where that was required. Along with colleagues, she identified a number of risks but was also quick to point out notable good practice. 

The outcome was that consensus was reached on the procurements for their next stage and workflows were progressed for the other projects which will ultimately lead to additional high quality services procured by Healthdirect Australia.