What is telehealth?
Telehealth uses video conferencing to connect you with your healthcare professional.
If you’re having an appointment from your home, we use the Queensland Health telehealth portal.
When you leave hospital, your follow up appointment could be by video conference.
Ask your health professional if telehealth is suitable for you.
How we use telehealth
We use telehealth for:
- outpatient appointments
- inpatient ward rounds
- at home patient appointments
- transfer of clinical images for specialist advice
- emergency support and advice.
Telehealth emergency support helps rural clinicians and patients, reducing the need to transfer patients to a major hospital centre.
It can also be used to:
- connect long term patients with families and carers
- connect multidisciplinary teams to conduct case reviews
- deliver clinical and non-clinical training to rural and remote staff.
How telehealth works
A telehealth appointment is similar to a face to face medical appointment. You’ll see your health professional on the video screen and hear them using your speakers or headphones. Your health professional will see and hear you.
You can ask a family member, carer or friend to sit in on the telehealth appointment with you.
Read more about telehealth.
At home
If you’re being seen at home you’ll need:
- a computer, tablet or smartphone
- internet / WIFI access
- a webcam, headset or speakers.
The clinic will send you an email or SMS appointment with a video link for you to click on the day of your appointment.
A test link will also be included in the email. Please make sure you click on the test link before the day of your appointment. This will confirm that your webcam and audio is working.
At a clinic or at your doctor's office
If you’re being seen at a Queensland Health rural facility or at your local doctor’s practice, staff will help you with the video conference equipment. A nurse may sit in the room and help you during your video consultation.
Before your appointment starts, the nurse will tell you what to expect during the consultation. They may also take your blood pressure, temperature and do other tests.
Your health professional will update your medical records after your appointment.
Technical support
If you need technical support, call the Telehealth Helpdesk on 1800 066 888.
You can find more information on the Telehealth Portal website.
Feedback on telehealth services
We welcome feedback on your telehealth experience.
If you have used our telehealth services at your local health facility, use the hardcopy survey provided for feedback. They can submit it for you after you’ve filled it in.
For 'In Home' telehealth patients, this electronic survey has been specifically designed to capture feedback.