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Virtual care policy template

A starting-point policy you can adapt to your clinic, health service or community.

What this is: a plain-language policy you can adapt and adopt as your service's own virtual care policy.

Who it's for: clinic managers, nurse managers, Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (ACCHO) leaders, and whoever owns policy in your service.

How to use this template

This is a starting point, not a finished document. Fill in every part in [square brackets] with the details for your service, delete anything that does not apply, and add anything that does.

A good virtual care policy sits alongside the policies you already have. It does not repeat your whole privacy or work health and safety policy. It points to them, and it covers the things that are specific to delivering care over a screen.

Before you publish it, have it approved the same way you approve any clinical policy, give it a version number and a review date, and make sure your team knows where to find it. Keep it short enough that people will actually read it.

Virtual care policy: [your service name]

Policy owner: [name and role] Approved by: [name and role or committee] Date approved: [date] Version: [number] Next review: [date]

1. Purpose

This policy sets out how [your service] delivers safe, high-quality virtual care. Virtual care brings a clinician to the patient using video and connected clinical equipment. It supports our local team and improves access to care. It does not replace face-to-face care, and patients can always choose a face-to-face appointment instead.

2. Scope

This policy applies to all staff, contractors, students and visiting clinicians who deliver or support virtual care at [your service], including [GPs, nurses, Aboriginal Health Workers, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practitioners, allied health, reception and administration].

3. When virtual care is appropriate

Virtual care suits many appointments, and not all. [Your service] uses virtual care when it is safe and appropriate for the patient and the clinical question.

We do not use virtual care when an in-person assessment is clinically necessary, when the patient prefers face-to-face care, or when the connection or equipment cannot support a safe consultation. The treating clinician makes this judgement and records it. Examples of appointments suited to virtual care at our service: [list]. Examples we keep face-to-face: [list].

4. Consent

We gain and record the patient's consent before a virtual care consultation. Consent covers the use of video, who will be present, how information is shared, and how records are kept. Patients can decline virtual care or stop at any time without it affecting their care.

In community-controlled and community settings, individual consent is not the whole picture. Where care involves the community's data or way of working, we also seek the community's agreement through [the process your service uses]. See our consent article for the detail.

5. Roles and scope of practice

Everyone works within their training, registration and this policy. Virtual care does not expand anyone's scope of practice.

  • The treating clinician [GP or other] holds clinical responsibility for the consultation.
  • The person at the patient end [nurse, Aboriginal Health Worker, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practitioner] supports the consultation by [preparing the patient, using the equipment, taking readings, and acting as the local hands and local knowledge].
  • [Other roles and what they do.]

Where a team member delivers a service on behalf of a GP, we follow the supervision and documentation arrangements in our scope of practice article.

6. Equipment and security

We use [name your virtual care equipment, for example the ProEX kit, a mobile trolley or a fixed set-up] that meets Australian standards and supplier guidance. We keep devices updated, charged and clean, and we follow our cleaning and infection control procedure.

We only use approved, secure platforms and accounts for virtual care. We do not use personal messaging apps or personal email to share patient information.

7. Privacy and information handling

We handle health information under the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles, and under [any state or territory health records law that applies to you]. Health information is sensitive information and gets a higher level of protection.

We collect only what we need, share only what is needed for the patient's care, store records in [your clinical system], and check where any cloud platform stores data, including offshore. In a community-controlled setting we also respect the community's ownership and governance of its data. See our privacy, security and data sovereignty article.

8. Clinical governance and escalation

Virtual care runs inside our existing clinical governance. The same safety and quality expectations apply as for care in the room.

We have a written escalation pathway for when a patient deteriorates, when the technology fails, or when a patient becomes distressed during a consultation. The pathway is [summarise, and link to your local protocol]. Staff know how to reach [the on-call clinician, local emergency services, and the supporting clinician] quickly.

9. Incident management

We record and review incidents and near-misses from virtual care the same way as any other incident, using [your incident system]. This includes technical failures that affected care and any concern about cultural safety. We review incidents to learn and improve, not to blame.

10. Review

We review this policy every [12 months] or sooner if the law, the standards, the equipment or our service changes. [Name or role] is responsible for the review.

A short adoption checklist

  • Fill in every [bracketed] section with your details.
  • Line it up with your existing privacy, consent, work health and safety, and incident policies.
  • Have it approved and version-controlled.
  • Train your team and tell them where it lives.
  • Set the review date in your calendar.

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Visionflex acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and pays respect to Elders past, present and emerging.