The pandemic forced rapid digital health adoption across Australia. Telehealth went from niche to mainstream in weeks. Health departments deployed exposure tracking apps. Hospitals accelerated digital patient management. Now, with several years of post-pandemic data, it’s clear which innovations represented genuine shifts and which were temporary adaptations.

Telehealth’s Permanent Foothold

The most obvious lasting change is telehealth. Medicare-subsidized video consultations went from essentially zero to millions per month in March 2020. When restrictions eased and temporary telehealth MBS items were made permanent in 2022, usage didn’t return to pre-pandemic levels. It stabilized at roughly 15-20% of total GP consultations, depending on the practice and region.

That’s a substantial permanent shift, though lower than some mid-pandemic predictions suggested. Patients appreciate the convenience for straightforward consultations, prescription renewals, and mental health appointments. GPs have incorporated it into practice workflow. The infrastructure exists.

However, telehealth hasn’t replaced in-person care the way some predicted. Examination-dependent consultations still require physical presence. Many patients, particularly older Australians, prefer face-to-face appointments. And GPs report that some conditions are simply harder to assess via video, especially when patient health literacy varies.

The regulatory framework has mostly caught up. Medical boards clarified that standard of care requirements apply regardless of consultation mode. Indemnity insurers now treat telehealth as routine. Initial concerns about diagnostic accuracy and liability haven’t materialized into major problems, though cases will inevitably occur.

Digital Prescriptions Became Standard

Electronic prescribing, which had been slowly rolling out before the pandemic, became standard practice during it. The paper prescription, once universal, is now increasingly rare. Most pharmacies can accept electronic tokens, and the infrastructure connecting GP software to pharmacy systems is robust.

This change seems irreversible. The convenience for both prescribers and patients is significant. Lost paper scripts are no longer an issue. Prescription tracking for medications of concern is easier. The efficiency gains are real.

What hasn’t followed is the predicted integration of prescribing data into broader health records. Electronic prescriptions flow from GP to pharmacy, but that data doesn’t automatically populate My Health Record or flow back to specialists. The infrastructure exists in fragments, but comprehensive integration remains incomplete.

My Health Record: Modest Growth

My Health Record, Australia’s national digital health record system, saw increased adoption during the pandemic, but growth has been modest. Approximately 25 million Australians have a record (up from 23 million in 2020), but active usage remains limited. Most records contain little beyond Medicare and PBS data automatically uploaded by government systems.

The fundamental challenge hasn’t changed. My Health Record requires active participation from both patients and healthcare providers to become genuinely useful. GPs need to upload consultation notes and test results. Specialists need to check records before appointments. Patients need to review and update information. That behavior change has proven difficult to achieve.

Some health networks have integrated My Health Record into clinical workflows more successfully than others. Where it works well, it provides valuable continuity of care, particularly for patients with complex conditions seeing multiple providers. But many GPs still view it as an additional administrative burden with limited clinical benefit.

Hospital Digital Infrastructure Accelerated

The hospital sector saw significant digital acceleration. Patient flow management systems, digital bed boards, and electronic medical records deployment all sped up. Many of these projects were already planned but received urgency and additional funding during the pandemic.

These changes are lasting because they’re now embedded in operations. Staff have been trained, workflows have adapted, and the systems are integrated with existing infrastructure. Rolling back would be more disruptive than maintaining them.

However, interoperability remains poor. A patient’s records from one hospital network don’t easily flow to another. State health systems use different platforms with limited data exchange. The vision of seamless health information exchange across providers hasn’t materialized.

What Disappeared

Several pandemic-era innovations haven’t persisted. State and territory contact tracing apps were abandoned once public health orders ended. The infrastructure built for vaccine certificate verification is largely dormant. Temporary home monitoring programs for COVID patients haven’t translated into broader remote patient monitoring adoption.

Remote patient monitoring deserves particular attention. During acute pandemic phases, health systems deployed pulse oximeters and monitoring protocols for COVID patients isolating at home. This seemed like it might catalyze broader RPM adoption for chronic disease management, but that hasn’t occurred at scale.

The barrier isn’t technology. Devices are available and relatively affordable. Connectivity isn’t the issue either. The challenges are clinical workflow integration, reimbursement models, and data management. Who reviews the monitoring data? What triggers intervention? How are clinicians compensated for asynchronous monitoring work? These questions remain largely unresolved.

Mental Health Digital Services

One area of sustained growth is digital mental health services. Platforms offering text-based counseling, video therapy, and structured mental health programs saw pandemic-era growth that has largely persisted. Organizations like Team400 have worked with mental health providers to build AI-enhanced support tools that complement traditional therapy.

Medicare subsidized psychology sessions increased substantially during the pandemic and haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels. Some of this is in-person care, but digital options have become an established part of the mental health service mix. The reduction in stigma around mental health support, combined with the privacy and convenience of digital services, appears to be a lasting change.

The Infrastructure Gap

What’s most apparent from a systems perspective is that Australia has adopted specific digital health applications without building comprehensive underlying infrastructure. We have telehealth, but not integrated clinical data systems. We have electronic prescribing, but not medication management platforms that span the care continuum. We have hospital EMRs, but not health information exchanges.

This application-layer adoption without infrastructure investment creates brittleness. Systems don’t interoperate. Data doesn’t flow. Efficiency gains in one area create friction in others. Patients still repeat their medical history to each new provider because information doesn’t travel with them.

The pandemic accelerated digital health adoption in Australia, and some changes are genuinely permanent. But the transformation remains incomplete. We’ve digitized specific processes without reimagining health system architecture. Whether that deeper transformation occurs, and what it might require, remains an open question.