How we develop health content that is trustworthy and safe

The websites we manage for the healthdirect (Opens in new tab) and Pregnancy, Birth and Baby (Opens in new tab) services contain over 20,000 content pages, and healthdirect.gov.au is now the most popular Australian health information site. It’s vital that our content is up-to-date, easy to understand and helpful.

Every piece of content, whether it’s an entirely new topic or an update to existing information, is subject to a rigorous development, review and approval process to ensure it is accurate and clinically safe.

Clinically safe information

Our Clinical Governance Framework underpins the work we do. We use this framework as a guide to deliver best-practice health information and advice.

Each quarter, an independent auditor reviews up to 10 per cent of newly published topics and all content is reviewed every two years to ensure the information remains current.

Health literacy

Health information can be complicated and overwhelming, so our goal is to provide facts and advice that are easy to understand for the majority of people in Australia, including those whose first language is not English.

To ensure the broadest range of people can benefit from the information on our websites, health articles are written in plain English, without unnecessary medical jargon. Where possible, we include actionable next steps so people know what they can do to maintain or improve their health.

Our content goes beyond explaining health conditions, also covering topics such as how the Australian health system works and helping people find the right type of care (Opens in new tab) for their health concerns.

An important part of our content development is to ensure the information we provide meets user needs. We do this through user research and consultations to understand and test what people are looking for and how they research health topics.

Development process

We follow a comprehensive content development process to ensure all content meets customer needs, is clinically accurate and safe and is of the highest editorial standards.

Overarching content development process:

• Content planning and creation – we do gap analysis and hold evidence-based planning sessions
• Drafting – health literacy principles are applied and reviewed by our team before publication
• Clinical and editorial reviews – clinical content is fact checked and peer reviewed by the appropriate health professionals
• Classification and publishing – information is classified to ensure accurate clinical categorisation and metadata is optimised for search
• Audit and evaluation – new content is audited quarterly by an independent reviewer and by our Clinical Governance team

An overview of how we develop and govern content can be accessed through a link on each health information page on our websites. We are HONcode certified (Opens in new tab), and the information on the About our content (Opens in new tab) page reflects how we meet the Health On the Net Foundation’s criteria on quality and objective and transparent medical information online.

Content partnerships

We provide a first stop for people looking for answers about their health online, providing general health information and advice that is trustworthy and safe.

The content we develop connects people through partnerships with leading Australian health organisations and peak bodies – our community of Information Partners (Opens in new tab).

These content partnerships are essential to ensure that our websites are relevant and reliable sources of information, allowing Australians to research health-related topics online with confidence and make more informed decisions about their health and healthcare.