Psychologists on video call for rural Australians

Last week Rockhampton resident Megan Gomez launched Rural Health Connect - an online service that connects psychologists with potential clients over video calls, in Central Queensland.

The site takes care of everything from searching, booking, reminders, video conferencing sessions and payments, and it links in with Medicare rebates for people in rural areas.

In an interview with The Australian Farmer , Gomez said that the company is looking to expand to the rest of rural Australia by getting more GPs and psychologists on board, however anyone could access it as a user.

“We’re going to reach out to GPs in Central Queensland initially, but it’ll be rolling out nationally, as we can get to them all. The truth is we have got psychologists there from various states but because it’s online it doesn’t really matter where they are anyway.”

In the interview, Gomez also explained the need for more mental health services rurally.

“I was a reporter at the Weekly for rural newspapers. I’ve spent a lot of time going into the homes of families experiencing drought, bushfires and other issues; and just saw the impact they could have. Also, how difficult it was to access help.

“People in Central Queensland were travelling even greater distances to access health, or they just wouldn’t do it at all, and it became apparent that there should be a better way. It started from there and the idea gradually grew.”

People living in isolated locations in rural areas can claim their psychology sessions on the website on Medicare and can use the map on the website to see if they would be eligible for the claim.

“If people want to check, they can look at the map which is linked to in our website and make sure they follow the instructions. Basically, anyone anywhere outside of a large town or city can claim.”

Gomez says the site aimed to address the urgent need for better access to mental health services in rural Australia.

The company has created a new innovative system to transfer sensitive documents between GPs and psychologists.

“Many GPs still use fax, but fax is sort of not approved by certain regulatory bodies because it’s not deemed secure enough. So, we’ve got a new system that catches the fax document, encrypts it, and then accessed by psychologists via a password given by the GP. The document is then destroyed so that they’re not stored. It’s basically working around the systems that are in place at the moment which are pretty old.”

The platform has been years in development and is completely encrypted and security approved.

The website also features an internet connectivity test to confirm whether a person’s connection would be good for video conferencing.

Gomez explains, “The picture quality gets worse after a while if there’s less internet feed available rather than dropping out. The internet in rural communities is gradually getting better, and we can run from a phone or a hotspot.

“We have done quite a bit of testing, it seems to be going okay. There seems to be areas that it won’t work but we’re hoping that it won’t be many and overtime as internet increases more there’ll be even less.

“We just want to be used. We’re just going to be promoting it to GPs, users, and psychologists. Tell everyone that we’re there and we just want to be as widespread as used as possible.