What is telehealth?
Telehealth uses videoconferencing to connect you with your healthcare provider.
If you're having your appointment from your home, we use the Queensland Health telehealth portal.
When you leave hospital, your follow up appointment could be by videoconference.
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. Patients get expert advice in their local community, reducing the need to transfer patients to a major hospital centre.
We also use telehealth to:
- connect long term patients with families and carers
- connect different teams to conduct case reviews
- give training to rural and remote staff.
Your telehealth appointment
A telehealth appointment is like a face to face medical appointment. You'll see your health professional on the video screen and hear them through 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.
At home
If you're doing your telehealth call from home you'll need:
- a computer, tablet or smartphone
- internet or Wi-Fi
- 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.
There will also be a test link 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 going to 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 appointment.
Before your appointment starts, the nurse will tell you what to expect during the video call. They may also take your blood pressure, temperature and do other tests.
Your health professional will update your medical records after your appointment.
Tell us about your experience using the hardcopy survey from your local health facility. They'll send it to us after you've filled it in.
Find out more about telehealth on the Queensland Health website.