A pilot that allows GPs to message or video call a paediatrician to ask clinical questions has kept patients off the specialist referral list, saving some families more than a year of waiting.

Gold Coast Health launched the DevPaed Connect trial in November last year, allowing GPs to message a paediatrician directly via a platform from health communication company Foxo.

In 14 cases so far, the advice has led GPs to remove three children from the paediatric waitlist and redirect one to a different specialty, according to paediatrician and project lead Dr Angela Owens, who provides the advice to GPs.

“It is either giving advice to the GP early so that patients are getting the most bang for their buck out of that first appointment or it is saving the complex patients for paediatricians while the relatively quick questions are resolvable with the GP,” she told AusDoc.