Tamworth Aboriginal Medical Service (TAMS) is an Aboriginal community-controlled health care service. Their vision is to provide the Aboriginal people of Tamworth, and the surrounding communities, with culturally appropriate and effective primary health care of the highest standard. TAMS operates in an industry which relies extensively upon complex applications to maintain patient records, very specific and legislated obligations for data security, and mandatory reporting and accuracy in billing.
The Australian government’s decision to include Medicare bulk-billing for telehealth consultations, announced in March 2020, brought an overnight transformation to the delivery of medical consultations in the immediate COVID-19 climate and for the foreseeable future. These changes needed to be implemented fast, while taking the necessary care to ensure data integrity was not compromised, meeting both the needs of the community without compromising TAMS' RACGP accreditation standards.
