What is HealthPathways?
HealthPathways is an online portal that supports health professionals by providing clinical guidance and local referral information at the point of care.
Through the portal, clinicians can enter a patient’s condition or suspected illness to access symptom outlines, management options and clear referral pathways to the most appropriate local services and specialists.
While HealthPathways is primarily designed for general practice teams, it is also used by allied health professionals, specialists and other healthcare providers. It is tailored to each local region, ensuring information is practical, relevant and aligned with available services.
In our region, HealthPathways is a partnership between our PHN and the Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health District. Content is developed collaboratively by GPs, hospital clinicians and other health professionals, reflecting strong cross-sector partnerships. This approach ensures pathways remain responsive to local needs and support timely referrals and evidence-based care.
Originally developed in New Zealand in 2008, as a collaboration between Streamliners and the Canterbury District Health Board, since then HealthPathways has expanded to over 40 regions across Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Each region typically maintains between 600-900 localised pathways, contributing to improved coordination between general practice and hospital care.
What are the Benefits?
Benefits for primary care
HealthPathways is designed to be efficient, simple and easy to use. From a single website, GPs and other health professionals can identify the most effective treatment and management options using locally developed clinical guidelines and quickly determine the relevant local specialists and services for their patients from an up-to-date service directory. As pathways are developed collaboratively by GPs, hospital clinicians and other health professionals, HealthPathways fosters improved communication and teamwork between primary care and hospital-based specialists and promotes standardised care, ensuring consistent patient management.
It also serves as a practical educational resource for GP registrars, nurses and junior doctors. Time spent in the system can be tracked for continuing professional development reporting.
Benefits for patients
HealthPathways is designed to improve the outcomes and experiences of patients by ensuring they receive the right treatment with shorter waiting times. HealthPathways helps by providing GPs and other health professionals:
- the best management and treatment options locally available for common medical conditions
- information on how to refer to the most appropriate local services and specialists
- educational resources and information for patients, to enable better self-management
Setting up your Individual Account?
- Visit HealthPathways
- Click the Sign in or register button
- Click Register
- Enter your personal information and email address (this cannot be a shared practice email)
- Complete your registration, including:
– name of your primary practice
– postcode of your primary practice
– professional registration number and registering body
– a password minimum of 8 characters - You will receive an email once your registration has been approved
- Log into HealthPathways using your new individual account
Watch the video below to learn how to set up an account in HealthPathways:
Improved Privacy and Security
Your individual account will provide a private and secure login, allowing you to manage your own details, including password updates. Only anonymised and aggregated usage data is collected to support quality improvements. To learn more, visit Terms of Use and Privacy on HealthPathways.
Reporting CPD Hours
Individualised accounts now makes it possible to log continuing professional development (CPD) hours. Time spent in the system is automatically recorded and you can add reflections to track your professional development. Reports can be personalised with self-directed learning notes, making it simple to generate activity reports.