An AI health assistant Australians can trust, with a nurse always one step away

When an Australian opens ChatGPT late at night to ask about a child’s fever, a sudden pain, or a mole that has changed, they are usually on their own with their smart phone. Healthdirect Australia is setting out to change that.

Today Healthdirect announced it is working with clinical-AI company Infermedica, skin-cancer-screening company Skin Analytics, technology partners AWS and DEPT​®​ to bring Healthdirect directly into ChatGPT. 

The idea is simple: give Australians an AI health assistant they can trust because Healthdirect is behind it, and because at any point in the conversation they can stop talking to AI and start speaking with a real Australian nurse.

“Australians are reaching for AI because it’s instant, it’s personal, and it speaks their language,” said Bettina McMahon, Chief Executive Officer, Healthdirect Australia. “Our job isn’t to talk them out of that, but to make it as safe and reliable as possible. For an Australian who opens ChatGPT with a worry at 11pm, we want them to get guidance grounded in trusted Australian health information, and to know a nurse is just one tap away if they need one.” 

Australians are already using AI for their health

ChatGPT is now used by around half of Australia’s adult population. Australian research commissioned by OpenAI in December 2025 found that 55% had used ChatGPT to check symptoms before seeing a doctor, and 40% had used it to understand their treatment options. OpenAI stated in January that ChatGPT was receiving about 40 million health questions every week. 

The right questions matter as well as the right answers 

General-purpose AI assistants are powerful but should only be used for education and information, not diagnosis and treatment. AI models can be highly accurate at giving advice, but that accuracy can fall when everyday people are left to ask the right questions themselves. 

Rather than leaving the consumer to ask exactly the right questions, when Healthdirect is invoked in ChatGPT, it will ask the consumer questions. This way, clinical logic leads the conversation instead of guesswork. 

Our vision of what Australians could get 

• AI asks you the right questions. A validated triage engine from Infermedica guides the conversation to advice of how urgent things are and what to do next.  
• Talking to a nurse, any time. At any point, the consumer can switch to talking to an Australian nurse through Healthdirect. The handover is seamless and can pick up from the chat. 
• Answers grounded in trusted Australian content. Guidance draws on Healthdirect’s clinically assured library with content from partners such as the Raising Children Network and Cancer Council, and aligned to Australian Medicines Handbook standards. 
• A way to act on the advice. Identification of appropriate nearby services from Healthdirect’s National Health Services Directory, with information on next available appointments and booking links so consumers get a path to care. 
• Quality watched by Healthdirect. Healthdirect monitors, evaluates and audits the experience against clinical benchmarks and guardrails.
• No cost to consumers. Available in the free version of ChatGPT, with conversations with nurses and escalation to doctors provided by Healthdirect. 

In practice, a consumer might prompt ChatGPT: "I fell over yesterday and grazed my cheek. How should I care for it?" 

If they tagged Healthdirect, then rather than going straight to wound-care advice, ChatGPT would first ask a few short questions drawn from Infermedica’s triage technology to check for warning signs of something more serious, such as concussion or an underlying reason for the fall, before advising whether it's safe to manage at home. It would then draw on Healthdirect's clinically assured knowledge base for self-care advice and the signs to watch for, and offer the option to speak with a nurse. 

Infermedica's clinically validated triage technology has supported more than 27 million patient interactions globally and is trusted by over 100 healthcare organisations across 35 countries. The platform is certified as a Class IIb medical device under European MDR, which means that clinical evidence supports EU registration and is based on international deployment, not Australian-specific evidence or approval. Registration with the Australian TGA is underway. 

“Large language models have changed how people access health information, but healthcare requires a higher standard of safety, transparency and clinical oversight,” said Piotr Orzechowski, Chief Executive Officer, Infermedica. 

“By combining Healthdirect’s trusted services, ChatGPT’s conversational capabilities and Infermedica’s triage technology built on more than 150,000 hours of physician expertise, we can help ensure Australians receive guidance that is both easy to access and grounded in proven clinical methodology.”

A world-first skin cancer check in your pocket

As part of the collaboration, autonomous skin cancer screening will be integrated into the experience. Using technology from Skin Analytics, an Australian could photograph a skin spot with their phone and learn whether it could be benign, pre-malignant or malignant. If required, the assistant could provide a referral letter and help book a follow up appointment. 

DERM is the world’s first AI medical device cleared to autonomously make a clinical skin cancer assessment, and the only Class III CE-marked device of its kind. Operating in England across 25 NHS hospitals, it has assessed more than 230,000 patients and identified over 20,000 skin cancers in six years. A CE-marked device means that clinical evidence supports EU registration and is based on international deployment, not Australian-specific evidence or approval. Recent CE certification of a consumer phone-only version now makes it possible to place this capability directly in a consumer’s hands, with registration with the Australian TGA underway. 

“Our mission is a world where no one dies of skin cancer, and that means meeting people where they are. After six years and 20,000 cancers found in the UK's NHS, we are partnering with Healthdirect, OpenAI and AWS to put a clinically validated skin cancer check where Australians are looking for health information. This is exactly the kind of partnership that turns our mission into something real for millions of people.” said Neil Daly, Chief Executive Officer, Skin Analytics. 

Built to plug in 

The collaboration uses open standards so it can be offered in other AI assistants over time, not just ChatGPT. The clinical logic, content and data governance stay with Healthdirect, in its own AWS secure cloud environment. As Healthdirect’s principal technology partner, AWS is providing the secure and resilient infrastructure, with deep AI, and technical expertise and support from AWS ProServe. DEPT®, as Healthdirect's digital product partner for the initiative, designs and builds the ChatGPT app experience itself, including the conversation design, clinical tool integrations and the interface that connects Healthdirect's services into ChatGPT. DEPT® brings deep experience building AI-powered digital health products. 

Access to free health advice

The collaboration complements governments’ commitment to provide free health advice and services to Australians, wherever they are and whenever they need it. Alongside the Healthdirect phone line and app, it tests how the service can meet people where they are, with quality and safety monitoring, Australian localisation, and the ability to speak with an Australian nurse or doctor. 

Starting with the opportunity while understanding the risks 

The proof of concept starts with an invited group of consumers, whose experience will shape the guardrails, monitoring, necessary regulatory approvals and governance before any wider release. The work will see what’s possible and how best to derisk it. 

AI assistants appeal because they can recall, learn and adapt over time but these features pose challenges for a clinically governed service. Healthdirect can control the consumer experience end to end within its own environment, yet it cannot control it within a consumer’s choice of AI assistant. Generative AI also brings the risk that it presents inaccurate information confidently or tells people what they want to hear. The collaboration will explore this tension so that risks can be managed as far as possible, and consumers informed clearly about the limits of health advice delivered through a generative AI interface.  

The collaboration confronts these challenges by starting with the opportunity.  

“This new technology has the potential to help millions of Australians make better choices about their health every day, and to connect with the right services”, said Bettina McMahon. “We are clear-eyed about what can go wrong, and we are designing safeguards built to scale nationally. But we are even clearer about our mission of a healthier Australia, and our duty to use every tool we have to reach it. The greater risk lies in standing still.”

About Healthdirect Australia 

Healthdirect Australia is the national digital health service provider, trusted by Australians for free, clinically governed health information and advice. Last year the service supported over 62 million interactions, and is known for innovative service delivery and the early, responsible adoption of AI. Healthdirect delivers Australia’s national service for trusted health information, backed by Australian nurses and doctors.  

About Infermedica 

Infermedica is the world’s leading certified AI triage platform, deployed across 100+ healthcare organisations in 35+ countries, and has served 27 million patients in 26 languages. Its Medical Guidance Platform, comprising Triage, Intake and Follow-up modules, is certified as a Class IIb medical device under EU MDR, the highest certification standard for clinical AI triage in Europe, and is registered with the UK MHRA. From symptom assessment to care navigation, Infermedica is the infrastructure that governments, health systems and insurers rely on to deploy clinical AI safely, compliantly and responsibly.  

(Infermedica’s Australian TGA assessment is in progress.) 

About Skin Analytics 

Skin Analytics is a UK health-technology company that has spent over a decade building DERM, the world’s first AI medical device cleared to autonomously make a clinical skin cancer assessment. DERM is a Class III CE-marked medical device under EU MDR, the highest regulatory tier and the same class as a pacemaker, and it is the first and only such device for skin cancer detection. Post-market surveillance shows DERM finds 97% of cancers, with a Negative Predictive Value of 99.6% for melanoma. DERM is live in 25 NHS hospitals, has assessed over 230,000 patients and identified more than 20,000 skin cancers in six years, and operates within private UK pathways including Bupa and Vitality. 

(Skin Analytics’ Australian TGA assessment is in progress.) 

About AWS 

Amazon Web Services is a world leading cloud services provider, enabling customers to build almost anything they can imagine. AWS offers choice of innovative cloud and AI capabilities and expertise, on extensive global infrastructure, with industry-leading security, reliability, and performance.  

About DEPT​®​ 

DEPT® is a Growth Invention company built to help the world’s most ambitious brands grow faster. Operating at the intersection of technology and marketing, our 4,000+ specialists deliver growth invention across Brand & Media, Experience, Commerce, CRM, and Technology & Data. We’re 50|50 tech and marketing, partner-led, and first to move. Clients include Google, Lufthansa, Coach, eBay and OpenAI. Certified B Corp and Climate Neutral since 2021.      ​​