It’s 2002, and Australia’s healthcare system is having a communication problem. Electronic health records are rolling out across the country, promising a more connected future, but the infrastructure to connect them securely simply doesn’t exist yet.
GP clinics are sending referrals by fax. Pathology results are getting lost in email inboxes. Hospital discharge summaries are printed, posted and sometimes never arrive. Patient information is stuck in digital silos, putting care at risk.
This is when NSW Health launched its Electronic Discharge Referral System project and discovered what many suspected: healthcare’s digital transformation had created new communication gaps that traditional methods couldn’t fill. ReferralNet became part of the solution, building the secure messaging infrastructure that hospitals and clinics needed to move patient information securely and efficiently.
Over two decades later, we’re still here – and still one of only three healthcare secure messaging providers in Australia that meet the highest interoperability and security standards.
Building for Australia’s healthcare system
Australia has a world-renowned healthcare system, but it’s also uniquely complex. Referrals flow between a web of public hospitals, private specialists, and bulk-billing GPs daily, each with distinct compliance requirements and billing processes.
When overseas providers try to adapt their systems for Australia, they often struggle with these nuances. The safe transfer of referrals, results and reports becomes difficult when a GP sends a referral to a specialist, and the specialist uses a specific practice management system. Then, the hospital and pathology lab also operate on completely different ones.
If your healthcare secure messaging has limited interoperability, you’ll likely end up with gaps or clunky, outdated systems that create delays and manual workarounds that slow patient care.
To avoid these gaps, some secure messaging providers choose to meet Australia’s three core interoperability standards:
- HL7 v2 for real-time messaging between clinical systems
- CDA for clinical documents like those used in My Health Record
- FHIR for modern data sharing.
Most providers find this path too demanding. The ongoing recertification, constant updates, and technical investment required means many look for easier alternatives: newer technologies that bypass traditional compliance or overseas solutions that never quite fit our regulatory landscape.
ReferralNet chose the rigorous path. We’re one of only three healthcare secure messaging providers in Australia that meets all these standards, and we integrate with various clinical systems – a collaborative approach we embraced long before it became an industry expectation.
Our approach in practice
For Peninsula Health, serving 300,000 people across various locations, using ReferralNet delivered far more than just secure messaging; it transformed their daily operations.
The team was drowning in 150-200 daily referrals being processed through fax machines and paper filing systems. Staff spent hours manually processing documents, chasing missing information and re-entering patient details.
After implementing MasterCare’s referral management solution with ReferralNet, 80% of its discharge summaries flow electronically, eliminating the bulk scanning and manual filing that consumed staff time. The organisation has saved $60,000-100,000 annually, while patient information stays encrypted and onshore with Microsoft Azure hosting.
Peninsula Health’s experience isn’t unique. ReferralNet supports over 10,000 healthcare providers across the country to eliminate paper-based processes, reduce administrative costs and refocus staff time on patient care.
Our plans scale from $15 per month for smaller practices to enterprise solutions; you can send any document type without additional per-page charge rates, and our infrastructure adapts to changing needs. Practices can scale their healthcare secure messaging plans up during busy periods and down when budgets tighten without being locked into rigid contracts that take years to implement.
The infrastructure works because it was designed for Australia’s healthcare landscape from the beginning instead of being retrofitted from overseas. To find out how ReferralNet works, take a look at our available plans today.