How technology is shaping the future of healthcare

Published May 2025 | 5 min read
Expert contributors: Dr Andrew Cottrill, Chief Medical Officer, HCF; Caz Mason, Manager Virtual Emergency Care, Royal Flying Doctor Service; Alex Chrisment, Co-founder and Director, Vitalis; Voni Leighton, Co-founder and Clinical Director, Vitalis
Words by Angela Tufvesson

New care models are reinventing the way we deliver healthcare services – from virtual consultations to treatment in the home – and this is just the beginning.

From video consultations with your doctor or psychologist to home treatments leading to shorter hospital stays, technology is reinventing how and where you receive healthcare. Instead of travelling to your local GP, rehab clinic or hospital for in-person consultations, for example, virtual care makes it possible to receive more of your care at a location of your choice.

There are many potential benefits, including greater convenience and flexibility, less time in hospital, and better integrated care, especially if you have complex health conditions. Plus, there’s the added bonus of receiving support in an environment where you feel comfortable.

Virtual care and other new healthcare models also expand access to services by breaking down geographic barriers, making it easier for people living in remote, rural or regional areas to receive quality care without travelling long distances. They also give you more options when it comes to choosing a specialist, so you can find the right expert for your needs, regardless of location.

Streamlining healthcare services

Dr Andrew Cottrill, HCF’s Chief Medical Officer, says technology is helping to streamline how healthcare services are delivered, making them more efficient. One of the most important outcomes is that healthcare can be delivered in a wider variety of locations.

“As new technologies come together and as our world becomes more interconnected, it’s opening up the possibility of delivering good care in different environments – like a person’s work environment, a person’s home or an aged care setting,” Dr Cottrill explains. “There are more opportunities to offer good-quality services in different settings than there were previously.”

Video consultations with GPs and mental health professionals grew in popularity during the pandemic, and Dr Cottrill says these services are continuing to improve as the technology evolves. Likewise, remote monitoring equipment and home-based clinical services are convenient and enhance access to healthcare, helping to make life a little easier.

“It might be that you go to hospital for part of your treatment, but you can be discharged earlier from hospital and sent home under supervised care that you couldn’t have previously,” Dr Cottrill says.

“Or your hospital nurse takes down information on a tablet and feeds it back to your GP to keep them in the loop. Or you might receive supported care through, for example, infusion devices in a home setting, whereas before, these would have always been done in hospital.”

Currently, treatments at home aren’t actually covered by our policies like treatment in hospital is. But we’ve chosen to pay for some treatments including chemo, rehab after knee or hip surgery, IV antibiotics and complex wound care when we can make sure the treatment can be given safely and at the same, or better, quality than in hospital. 

That’s not to say hospitals will fade into irrelevance, more that their role is changing as technology continues to open up new models of care. “It’s got to be appropriate to your clinical situation,” Dr Cottrill explains. “In some cases, it’s safe and convenient to offer healthcare services in a non-standard [out of hospital] location.”

Another upside to new treatment models is that they help free up healthcare resources, reducing the demand for inpatient care and allowing hospitals and other clinical settings to focus on more critical cases.

Providing choice and flexibility

Some of the most innovative emerging care models include the following areas.

• Virtual consultations and care: online or phone consultations with healthcare professionals like your GP, psychologist, speech pathologist or physiotherapist for general health queries, mental health support and ongoing care. Eligible HCF members can access virtual GP consultations through GP2U^*, or if you’re living with diabetes or a heart condition, you might be able to get phone support from dietitians, pharmacists, exercise physiologists and other health professionals through The COACH Program^{®^} or our new pilot program, Cardihab^{^}. You can access online mental health services⁺ like the HealthyMinds Check-in^# and This Way Up^**, as well as Calm Kid Central^{^^}. There’s also Birth Beat⁺⁺, a 100% online childbirth education course. Plus, our HCF Assist^## service offers phone support to help you navigate the health system and manage your recovery after a hospital treatment.
• Outpatient or non-admitted services: for patients who don't need overnight stays in a hospital. Common procedures include X-rays, ultrasounds, blood tests, GP visits and specialist consultations.
• Day or specialist hospitals: focused, short-term care for patients who don’t require overnight stays. Treatments range from cataract surgery and ophthalmology (eye surgery) to gastroenterology and orthopaedics, while common medical services include oncology, radiotherapy and dialysis.
• Treatment at home: services you’d otherwise have to travel to or stay longer in hospital for. If your doctor agrees, you can get care at home instead of in hospital. HCF’s network of contracted providers allows us to cover the cost of the treatment at home for intravenous (IV) therapy antibiotics, complex wound care with negative pressure wound therapy, rehabilitation after a hip or knee replacement and IV chemotherapy^*** when it's safe to do so.
• Integrated care: combines virtual patient monitoring with home-based healthcare services for people with complex health conditions, to prevent hospital re-admission and reduce the length of your stay in hospital. Through an innovative invitation-only trial with Vitalis^{^^^}, selected HCF members can get personalised care and support through remote monitoring, telehealth, health coaching and home-based clinical services.
• Short-stay joint replacement care: rapid recovery programs after joint replacement surgery where a short hospital stay is followed by at-home care.
• End-of-life care: if you want to spend your final days at home, HCF may be able to provide support. 

HCF member Janet appreciated being able to choose her recovery approach after knee replacement surgery. She was in hospital for three nights before being discharged to head home for post-surgery rehab, instead of being admitted for rehab. “My physio was already organised to come after the operation, and that’s been great,” she says. “It was so wonderful to have a physio come to my home, instead of having to struggle to get to a rehab centre.”

Catering for complex conditions

Virtual care can offer particular benefits for people with complex health conditions, who often need frequent hospital visits.

Alex Chrisment, Co-founder and Director at Vitalis, which provides hospital-standard healthcare to patients in their homes, says the Vitalis Virtual team aims to keep patients out of hospital. “We do that through a combination of telehealth and boots on the ground,” he says.

He explains that selected HCF members with complex health conditions who have been invited to take part in Vitalis’ integrated care trial can receive a broader range of care in the comfort of their home. Plus, if members participating in the trial do need to go to hospital, virtual care supports them to return home sooner.  

“These patients are onboarded using technology that allows them to connect to our system,” says Alex. “Then we do a thorough assessment of their needs. Some patients might use a passive monitoring device that remotely sends us data about their heart rate or other vital signs. Others might benefit better from an active reporting approach, where they tell us how they feel, their pain level or their psychological situation. All information is fed into a dashboard that allows our clinical team to closely monitor individual situations and respond accordingly, as well as manage a portfolio of patients and identify who needs what and when in order to deliver the best outcomes.”

If their condition changes and they need extra care, Vitalis Virtual’s remote patient management services are on hand to provide support. 

“When complex conditions change and escalate, patients are often directed to see their GP, go back to their specialist, to hospital or an urgent care centre. But our services mean that may not be necessary, which is better for the patient and the health system,” says Voni Leighton, Co-founder and Clinical Director at Vitalis.

She explains that Vitalis’ medical teams work with HCF members during the trial, referring doctors to develop a care and treatment plan, which Vitalis’ Hospital in the Home staff deliver in the patient’s home. “In many cases, the patient doesn’t have to go into hospital at all,” Voni adds.

Meet the virtual flying doctor

Technology is also reimagining care for people living in, and visiting, remote areas. The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) has recently opened a health hub in the tiny South Australian outback tourism town of William Creek that provides emergency medical care with no health professionals physically in the room.

In case of a medical emergency, an intercom located on the building’s exterior allows both community members and travellers along the Oodnadatta Track to connect to the RFDS Operational Control Centre at any time of the day or night.

“You literally press a button and get put through to the duty doctor,” explains Caz Mason, Manager Virtual Emergency Care at the RFDS. “What’s called a Visionflex unit means you can see the doctor and the doctor can see you. The vision is really clear, and the doctor can pick up a lot more than from a telephone call – what your colour looks like, whether you’re gasping for breath, whether you’re in distress.”

The unit includes a fingertip oxygen monitor, blood pressure monitor and electrocardiography leads to help the doctor with diagnosis. It also has a comprehensive range of medical devices that can transmit high-quality images to the doctor, such as wound assessments, dermatology imaging, and throat and dental examinations.

“We can’t always have a doctor on site, as the region is so remote. To be able to have a face-to-face discussion with a doctor can be so reassuring. If, after the assessment, the doctor decides it’s necessary to get a person to hospital, our retrieval team would then fly up,” Caz says.

“This technology is healthcare evolution. It’s so important to explore different ways to care for people, especially in the remote regions we’re looking after.”

Care when (and where) it counts

We're always thinking of ways to make life a little easier for our members. By investigating new models of care, we want to improve access to health services so more people can get the high-quality care they want, when they need it. Currently, selected eligible members^*** can access a wide range of home treatment options like chemo, rehab after knee or hip surgery, IV antibiotics and complex wound care. To find out more, email us on hst@hcf.com.au or give us a call on 13 13 34.