Australia’s health system is still very manual in 2025

Australia’s Healthcare System is supposed to be undergoing a digital revolution with the introduction of My Health Record, a national digital health record system in 2012.

Originally, this system was designed as a voluntary opt-in system, but after a period of review, consultation and trials, it was recognised that the system would be more valuable, and more practitioners would use the system, if more consumers were participating. The Australian Government announced the decision to transition to an opt-out participation model as part of the 2017-18 Budget.

At 42, I’ve had a great run when it comes to health, until recently when I required help.

On Sunday 19th January, I became ill. My symptoms started with an inability to regulate my body temperature, fever, chills, headaches and eventually stomach issues.

Thinking it may have been a combination of heat stroke and something I ate, I thought I’d ride it out and 48hrs it’d be fine. It wasn’t.

My condition worsened, I wasn’t eating, I was barely sleeping, up every hour, sometimes multiple times around the clock. A few days of this and I was over it, drained and pretty low.

I knew I needed to keep drinking fluids, and hydrolytes simply weren’t enough.

By Wednesday, day 4, I was well and truly in need of help.

I started with a call to Nurse on Call to get their thoughts on my next move as sitting in an emergency ward for 8 hours simply wouldn’t work in my condition.

Upon the advice of Nurse on call (and my wife), I looked for an appointment at my regular GP, booked for days straight that wasn’t a viable path. Instead, I went to a local Priority Care Centre and they seen me that day.

Manual process 1

Booking the appointment was fine, though the HotDoc mobile app, which was pretty straight foward and easy. Once I arrived thought, it seems none of the data I’d provided flowed through to the systems at Priority Care, so I completed a manual paper form, repeating much of what I’d already entered.

The doctor ordered a bunch of tests and I started on a course of general antibiotics, not knowing exactly what the cause was. Being told it could be 7-10 days was devastating news, I couldn’t continue like it was for that long.

Manual Process 2

I left the Doctor with a hand full of paperwork. These included 2 pathology tests, and the script for the anti-biotics.

The script went to the chemist, while the paperwork for the tests, was taken to a local pathology lab.

The following day, Thursday, I received a call from the Dr, indicating I had abnormal blood test results.

The next available appointment was the Friday (Day 6) and returned to the Primary Care Centre. The Dr advised me they seen elevated markers in my blood that indicated potential liver issues, along with an infection of some kind.

This was big news for someone who’s enjoyed good health, outside having my wisdom teeth and a week in bed with Covid a few years back.

It was then recommended that we go to Emergency at Albury Base Hospital.

Manual Process 3

Being referred to the ER, also included more paperwork from the Doctor that I had to take to Albury Hospital and hand to their reception staff to give them background on me and my condition.

After being seen by a nurse, another blood test, I was then hooked up to an IV drip to replenish my fluids as drinking water wasn’t enough.

Finally I made it to the infectious disease specialist who had received more test results and diagnosed me with having Salmonella poisoning. Don’t ask me where it came from, I still can’t pinpoint it to this day.

Having a diagnosis was great, but the next question was, how we treat it. I was told to stop the existing anti-biotics as they wouldn’t be effective against this (which I did).

I was presented with two options for treatment.

Take a course of anti-biotics specially targeting this infection

Do nothing, ride it out and monitor things, hoping my body would continue to fight the infection.

The advice was strongly pointing to option 2 for one very simple reason, which I kind of guessed. The Dr advised that if you can avoid anti-biotics, you should to avoid your body building a resistance, which could be bad in the event I get a serious infection in the future.

The doctor also mentioned that by taking the anti-biotics, I may start to feel a little better, but it was likely to prolong the infection in my body, as compared to letting my body go to work.

There were also positive signs when comparing blood tests from Wednesday and Friday, which pointed to the fact I was on the mend.

Manual Process 4

The doctor provided me with the script for dedicated anti-biotics in case I wasn’t seeing improvement. Fortunately I never filled that script.

I was also given the paperwork for a follow-up blood test which also needs to be taken to the pathology lab to complete.

This was the Friday before the Australian day long weekend, so I imagined, hoped even, that by the Tuesday, I’d be feeling better.

While I had continued to improve, I was still not sleeping well and fatigue was bad. Keep in mind that this experience seen me go from something in the order of 605 mg of caffeine per day.. to zero. I went cold turkey and 3 weeks later, I’m still yet to have a coffee and I think I’m done with energy drinks.

Thankfully after a long recovery, I’m not feeling better, close to 100%, as we approach 3 full weeks after falling ill. This was a horrible experience and not something I’d wish on my worst enemy.

Manual Process 5

During the past week, I’ve received at least 2 letters in the mail with test results from the laboratory, both of which I already knew.

Overall

When I logged in to the Government’s My Health Record, I see around a dozen entries under pathology reports have been added.

While this is great to see and great that I have access to my own test results, there was never any mention of My Health Record by any of the health professionals I interacted with.

Never once did they say this would be available electronically (something I actually want), and even now, the notes from my doctor are nowhere to be seen. Fortunately I took a photo of the documents before handing them in at the hospital.

So the takeaway from all of this, is that Australia still has a very long way to digitise information and securely transfer it between the different businesses that play a part in healthcare.

Strangely they are all very capable of accepting a Medicare card.

I am incredibly grateful for all the nurses, doctors that helped me, and I am also extremely grateful for the healthcare system we do have, this entire experience has cost me close to $0 out of pocket. Effectively my only cost was the anti-biotics, but I easily saved that on not eating food for a week.