We work with accredited health writers, clinical experts and production companies to produce our health information. Here is a list of some of our regular contributors.
Script's team of medical writers come from a range of health professions, including medicine, pharmacy, nursing and occupational therapy. Script's director, Galia Stephenson, has more than 15 years of health education experience, a Bachelor of Science degree (Bsc Psych, Biochem) and a Master's degree in Neuropharmacology (MSc Pharmacol.).
WriteSource Medical (WSM) is a bespoke medical writing, data management and biostatistics consultancy that provides professional services to the academic, government and pharmaceutical sectors. WSM's medical writers have diverse backgrounds covering nursing, medicine, pharmacy, public health and regulatory writing.
Jane has 35 years of experience as a child health nurse and has qualifications in general, paediatric, immunisation and midwifery nursing. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Applied Science (Nursing).
Elsevier provides information services for the science, health and technology sectors, including publishing medical journals and textbooks. In addition to writing and reviewing new health content for our websites, Elsevier conducts scheduled reviews of existing content for clinical currency and quality assurance purposes.
Deb has a Bachelor of Nursing degree and is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC). She has worked both in hospital and in community settings as a registered nurse, midwife, childbirth educator and child and family health nurse.
Jane is a former registered nurse and a medical journalist. She has degrees in science and communications — BAppSc (Nursing) and BBusComm (Journalism) respectively — and is a member of the Australasian Medical Writers Association (AMWA).
Karyn is a freelance medical writer with more than 15 years' experience writing informative and engaging educational materials both for health professionals and patients. She holds a PhD in Chemistry and a Graduate Certificate in Journalism.
Ragg & Co's panel of writers and editors comes from a range of backgrounds, including health, science and law. The firm's director, Mark Ragg (MBBS BA), has worked as a doctor in emergency departments, and as a journalist with The Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald.
EIDO Healthcare Australia provides information about surgical procedures. The group's content has been developed by qualified and practising consultant surgeons and physicians to help consumers make informed decisions.
Broken Yellow specialises in high-quality video, animation and design for a range of productions. Healthdirect Australia commissioned a series of animations from Broken Yellow that guides consumers through the Australian healthcare system.
Motherbird is a brand identity and design studio that has been working with Healthdirect Australia for over 10 years. Motherbird has provided logo design, infographics and animations.
Tonic Health Media is one of Australia's largest health and wellbeing media networks, created by health professionals in collaboration with media specialists. Healthdirect Australia commissioned a series of dementia awareness video productions from Tonic Health Media.
Healthdirect Australia also includes on its websites video content produced by Australian health peak bodies and other organisations. Video provides easy access to high-quality healthcare information, presented by subject matter experts, and is beneficial to consumers at all levels of 'health literacy'. Learn more about our information partners below.
The following sources are used to create healthdirect's medicines pages. The data is refreshed once a month.
The AHT is maintained by Healthdirect Australia and consists of health and medical terminology. It is also the source of the pregnancy- and age-related information that appears on some medicines pages.
The AMT identifies all medicines commonly used in Australia, including generic brands. It also provides standard names to accurately describe medications.
Medicines Information Pty Ltd is the provider of the high quality, standards-based photographic images of pills displayed on healthdirect's medicines pages.
The PBS provides details of the medicines subsidised by the Australian Government as well as information for consumers and health professionals.
The TGA is part of the Australian Government Department of Health. The TGA regulates the supply of prescription and non-prescription medicines and complementary medicines.
The TGA supplies most of the information about medicines on healthdirect's pages. This includes important characteristics, such as indications, appearance and storage, as well as information on medicines recalls and other important topics.
The healthdirect Symptom Checker is an online tool that allows people to check their symptoms using a simple, self-guided triage process to find out what they should do next. This might include self-care at home, seeing a GP, going to an emergency department or calling triple zero (000).
The Symptom Checker is underpinned by strict clinical governance and clinical decision-making technology.
The healthdirect Symptom Checker is not a diagnostic tool nor should it replace consultation with a health professional. It's designed to help Australians access the care they need at any time, and to take some pressure off the health system.
The healthdirect Service Finder is powered by the National Health Services Directory (NHSD), a national directory of health services and practitioners.
The NHSD data aligns with other national databases, such as AHPRA's register of practitioners, ensuring consistency of data sets across the health sector. The NHSD also uses a best-practice framework and consistent language to communicate across the health system by adhering to the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standard and the SNOMED CT-AU taxonomy.
The NHSD also connects with Provider Connect Australia™ (PCA™), which is an initiative of the Australian Digital Health Agency to help healthcare provider organisations update their business information in one place. Once registered with PCA™, healthcare providers can choose to automatically send their updated business information to all their connected business partners, such as the NHSD.
The Question Builder helps people prepare for their medical appointment. Using the tool, a person creates a list of the most important questions to ask their doctor, as well as any questions they may be asked by their practitioner.
The Question Builder was originally developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in the United States. Healthdirect Australia and the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care worked together to adapt it for the Australian healthcare system.
To support the Therapeutic Goods Administration's (TGA) opioid medicines awareness campaign, Healthdirect developed an Opioid Risk Indicator and Pain Question Planner.
The Opioid Risk Indicator, through a series of simple questions, lets the user know if they're at risk of opioid-use disorder. This tool is based on research and risk calculations developed by the Monash Addiction Research Centre (MARC).
The Pain Question Planner helps the user curate a list of questions to ask their doctor about their pain medication.
Healthdirect Australia works with a group of more than 200 leading Australian health organisations that provide trusted content which can be accessed through our range of online services. They include peak bodies, government agencies, research institutes, educational institutes and not-for-profit organisations. An information partnership reflects a shared vision to provide relevant and reliable health and related information to Australian consumers.
Information partners are assessed for the quality, relevance and technical attributes of their online resources. Each organisation and their clinical governance and content development processes are evaluated. They adhere to our publishing standards, which underpin the criteria that Healthdirect Australia uses when assessing organisations for information partnership.
Healthdirect Australia complies with relevant external standards for websites, including:
The World Wide Web Consortium's guidelines, WCAG, define how organisations can make online content more accessible to people with disabilities. These guidelines also make content more usable for older individuals, whose abilities are changing with age, and often improve usability in general.
These advisory notes are issued by the Australian Human Rights Commission. They are intended to assist organisations that develop web resources by clarifying the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA).
Healthdirect's editorial oversight occurs at 2 levels:
Content on the healthdirect website needs to adhere to Healthdirect Australia's Editorial Guidelines.
These guidelines have been produced to ensure Healthdirect Australia's digital services, such as websites, tools, applications and widgets, follow best editorial practice, use consistent, correct and consumer-focused language and that all content is optimised for digital consumption and search engines.
Australians who use Healthdirect Australia's online and other services come from a wide variety of backgrounds and demographics. They also vary in their ability to access health-related information, and to understand and make decisions about their own health — their overall 'health literacy'.
Ensuring that content takes into account differing levels of 'health literacy' is a crucial objective.
One of the tools utilised to ensure adherence to best practice health literacy standards is the SHeLL Health Literacy Editor, developed by the Sydney Health Literacy Lab at the University of Sydney (Ayre J. et al., 2023. JMIR Formative Research, e40645. DOI: 10.2196/40645).
Healthdirect Australia aims to provide consumers with accessible, understandable information that will allow them to make informed decisions about their own health. Where possible, content should outline specific actions readers can take to maintain or improve their health as well as deal with illness and even emergencies.
Healthdirect Australia's 'Pathways Process' applies to content that is manually planned, developed, produced, published and maintained by Healthdirect Australia within the digital properties and channels we operate. Processes outline workflows that cover both the creation of new content and its ongoing maintenance.
Healthdirect Australia's content development process includes the following phases:
Healthdirect Australia manages and maintains the Australian Health Thesaurus, a taxonomy of medical, health and human services-related concepts that reflect the current Australian environment. Concepts, including medicine terms, are mapped to standard terminologies, such as SNOMED, to enhance linked data opportunities.
All content is reviewed on a regular basis to make sure it is complete, accurate and trustworthy. Our standard review frequency is every 2 years, with some topics reviewed more often due to the nature of the subject matter. 'Last reviewed' dates appear clearly on individual pages.
Healthdirect Australia's Clinical Governance and Content teams periodically audit samples of published content, and consumer feedback is considered regularly, to ensure a user-centric approach and continuous improvements.
In addition to these regular reviews of specific health content, our associated processes are audited and assessed periodically to ensure best-practice content governance.
Our health information is evidence-based, with content supported by reliable sources. In addition to published articles and reviews in peer-reviewed journals, Healthdirect Australia aims to use Australian, non-commercial sources, including:
Original ('first hand') sources of the material are referenced on our web pages. All references cited can be accessed by a link from the sources section on each page.
Healthdirect Australia's websites do not receive funding from advertising the products or services of other organisations. We don't promote the interests of any person or organisation who may financially benefit as a result of information placed on the website.
Healthdirect Australia ensures the company makes information available on its websites with the primary objective of providing an important health service to users of that information.
Our editorial leadership team ensures the content on the healthdirect website is developed in accordance with Healthdirect Australia's guidelines and governance processes. The team provides strategic direction and oversees the external contributors who write and review our content.
Camilla leads Healthdirect Australia's Digital Content team, which is responsible for delivering the content strategies governing the online components of our services. Key activities include content planning, commissioning, production, publishing and continuing quality assurance and optimisation.
Andrea ensures the editorial quality of content across Healthdirect Australia's digital channels. This includes making sure it complies with health literacy principles. She also consults and advises on media and communications throughout the business, drawing on over 15 years' experience as a journalist, editor and sub-editor for national and international news outlets, and as an editorial consultant for intergovernmental organisations.
Joanne is a member of the Clinical Governance division, which ensures the clinical quality and reliability of the website. She leverages 30 years of experience as a registered nurse, with expertise in tertiary care, safety and quality, and infection prevention and control across public and private health sectors in Australia.
Vanessa leads the strategic delivery of Healthdirect's digital products, ensuring they align with organisational goals and stakeholder needs. Vanessa's role directly shapes the website's content strategy and performance, ensuring it meets user expectations and complies with clinical and policy standards.
James oversees the design, delivery and management of the taxonomies, ontologies and vocabularies that support Healthdirect Australia's online properties. He assists with information architecture development and management, including providing input to content modelling as channels are developed and evolve.
NOTE: While it is reviewed for clinical accuracy, the content on the healthdirect website is not a substitute for professional advice and should not be used as an alternative to professional healthcare. If you have a particular medical problem, please consult your doctor or a specialist.