There was welcome news in the primary care sector this week with a new trial being launched in Victoria to use secure messaging technology to inform GPs if patients at medium risk of hospitalisation for COVID-19 have tested positive. The trial is using existing secure messaging technology and vendor directories for patients receiving in-home monitoring from programs like hospital in the home or HARP, and also taps into the Victorian COVID Positive pathways program.

Hopefully, the trial will go some way to solving problems for GPs in actually knowing which of their patients are positive and may need extra support. It doesn’t really solve a problem that former AMA president Mukesh Haikerwal has raised about immediately alerting GPs to ensure at-risk patients receive treatment straight away, but it’s a start at least.