Distance shouldn't decide dignity. Or world-class care.
In 1857, my great-great-great-grandmother, Emily Smale, was born into the Yuggera nation near Warwick in Queensland.
She was a midwife, and once swam a flooded river to deliver a baby, serving her community until 1942. Her son Walter became the first Indigenous soldier to enlist in the Australian Army, dying at Gallipoli in 1917. Her grandsons built roads and airstrips across the country during World War II, working alongside Elders in Arnhem Land.
Across four generations, my family helped build the physical infrastructure that connected rural Australia.
Today, I’m building a different kind of highway – one made not of bitumen, but of technology and trust. Yet the distance my ancestors fought to overcome still exists. And the truth is, it’s not a failure of will. It’s a failure of design.
In 2025, Australia’s healthcare system is world-class, unless you live too far from it.
Seven million Australians live in rural or remote areas. They die up to 13 years earlier than city dwellers, experience four times the rate of avoidable death, and receive $1090 less in healthcare funding per person.
This isn’t an issue of geography, but structural bias.
Meanwhile, the strain on our healthcare system is causing unprecedented burnout among GPs, with the RACGP’s Health of the Nation Report showing that GPs deliver 172 million consultations annually.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. The Productivity Commission estimates that better digital health integration could save over $5 billion yearly by avoiding duplication and unnecessary hospitalisations.
We’re not short on data. We’re short on design that puts people, place, and connection at the centre.
At Katanning, one of South West Aboriginal Medical Service’s most remote clinics, telehealth once meant phone calls or grainy video links. Attendance was poor due to a combination of practical barriers, such as distance and cost, and systemic issues that eroded trust between the Indigenous community and the healthcare system, including experiences of discrimination and a lack of cultural safety.
But when the clinic’s nurse started using clinical-grade virtual care technology with connected diagnostic tools, attendance at appointments increased from an average of 20% to 100%.
One patient returned after weeks of ear pain. The otoscope revealed a cotton-bud tip lodged deep inside his ear canal. The nurse, with assistance from the GP assisting remotely, flushed it out immediately. The pain was gone and, just as importantly, trust was restored.
At Juniper’s Sarah Hardey Aged Care Home in WA, a clinical nurse manager conducts GP rounds, wound consults, and emergency department assessments at residents’ bedsides.
ED specialists join virtually to prevent unnecessary transfers, a process that benefits the patient and reduces the strain on our healthcare system. Geriatricians continue post-discharge care using the same platform. For residents with dementia or limited mobility, it means fewer transfers and more comfort, connection, and continuity.
In William Creek, South Australia (population 12), the RFDS built a clinic that never closes. Walk in at 2am and you’re face-to-face with an RFDS doctor on screen who can assess vitals, examine wounds, and guide local custodians in dispensing medicines. Before a plane takes off, doctors already have a full clinical picture. More often, patients are treated locally, safely, and on Country.
These real-life examples are proof that when technology enables genuine clinical examination, virtual care becomes more than just a convenient option. For our remote and at-risk communities, it’s the most effective way to deliver world-class healthcare that has otherwise been out of reach for far too long.
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The future requires a new architecture for healthcare delivery.
This technology allows us to imagine an Australia where regional wellbeing precincts combine telehealth centres, training facilities, staff accommodation, mental health and allied health services. Each becomes a living ecosystem where medical, mental, and social care coexist.
And the best part is that these hubs don’t have to close at 5pm – they can stay open to provide round-the-clock care for anyone who needs it.
Each region would have a virtual command centre, staffed by nurses, nurse practitioners, GPs, specialists, and allied health professionals, equipped with technology and live data feeds from the communities it serves.
And in the places people already gather – like pharmacies, aged-care homes, Aboriginal health centres, mine sites and community halls – there would be a trained nurse, pharmacist, or community health worker using virtual care technology to connect live to this command centre, enabling real-time clinical examination across hundreds of kilometres.
This model doesn’t replace local clinics. It makes them more accessible and capable of delivering world-class care, unburdened by the constraints of vast distances and limited resources.
Sustainable systems require investing in those who provide care. We need virtual health fellowships upskilling nurses, paramedics, and Aboriginal health practitioners in digital practice and remote diagnostics. Every hub should double as a training site where urban doctors rotate through, returning fluent in both medicine and technology.
The next decade of Australian nation-building won’t come from government alone. It requires partnerships where enterprise invests in community wellbeing.
We can repurpose underused council buildings and small hospitals into virtual health centres, financed through blended capital and public-private partnerships. Government seed funding, local ownership, and private investment tied to measurable outcomes generate both financial returns and social dividends.
This is a regenerative enterprise. In other words, a business that grows by giving back.
Australia stands at a crossroads. The Productivity Commission says our funding models favour hospitals over prevention. The RACGP warns our GP workforce is stretched and ageing. PHNs see regional populations growing older and sicker while services fall behind.
We can keep talking about reform, or we can build infrastructure delivering healthcare the way we built power and water: universally, locally, sustainably. Just as rail once connected our towns, virtual care can connect our people.
Distance shouldn’t decide dignity. Let’s create hubs that heal, invest in clinicians who stay, create communities that thrive, and make equity our default setting.
Joshua Mundey is the CEO of Visionflex.