HealthDirect Australia

HealthDirect Australia, provides another example of Castells new informational organisation. HealthDirect Australia is a national health call centre network based in Tasmania which was introduced by the Australian Government in July 2007 (HealthDirect Australia begins operation 2007). All people living in Western Australia, Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory can call a 1800 number for health advice 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Currently in South Australia, only people calling Flinders Medical Centre’s or Noarlunga Hospital’s Emergency Departments for information or advice are transferred to HealthDirect Australia. Services will be available in New South Wales from 2008 and national coverage achieved in by 2011. Once the national network is fully operational, anyone in Australia can seek advice from a registered nurse at HealthDirect Australia, ensuring all Australians have access to health information when they need it.

According to the Department of Health and Ageing (Overview of the National Health Call Centre Network 2006), health call centres are an effective way of providing the community with advice and information to make decisions about their health care without time or geographical restrictions. Registered nurses, ‘supported by a single national set of electronic decision support software and algorithmns, provide safe and effective health triage, information and advice to callers’ (Overview of the National Health Call Centre Network 2006).

It could be said that registered nurses are an example of the skilled workers who have moved to the bottom of the organisational structure in the shift from the ‘heavy’ industry to the ‘light’ industry. However, nurses working for HealthDirect Australia are an example of ‘heavy’ industry skilled workers who have moved to become informational workers.

Castells (Introduction to the Network Society 2007) states:
‘The more our information systems are complex, and interactively connected to data bases and information sources, the more what is required from labor is to be able of this searching and recombining capacity. This demands the appropriate training, not in terms of skills, but in terms of creative capacity, and ability to evolve with organisations and with the addition of knowledge in society.’