Fax machines & phone tag
Receptionists spend hours calling other practices, re-faxing records, and chasing follow-ups. Each transfer burns 30–60 minutes of staff time that could be spent on patient care.
Patient record transfers are costing general practice millions
Every transfer means phone calls, USBs, faxes, follow-ups, or not even getting a response. We built Relay to replace all of that with one secure digital workflow, so your team gets their time back.
$87
average admin cost per patient transfer
2–4 wks
typical turnaround for record transfer
35,000+
GPs across Australia managing transfers
The admin nightmare every practice knows
Moving a patient's records between practices should be simple. Anyone who has worked a practice front desk knows it isn't. Every practice has its own workaround, whether that's the fax machine, a USB stick in the post, or a shared cloud folder. None of them are good.
Lost & incomplete records
Paper records and USB sticks go missing in the post. Faxes arrive illegible. Critical information gets left behind. Patients fill gaps from memory, and clinicians make decisions on incomplete history.
Compliance exposure
Manual handling creates audit gaps, consent confusion, and unnecessary privacy risk. Every fax sent, USB handed over, or patient file sitting in an unsecured cloud drive is a potential breach under the Privacy Act.
From request to transfer in minutes
Four steps, no fax machine involved. This is what a transfer looks like on Relay Health.
01
Practice signs up
Your practice registers on Relay Health and is verified as an approved Australian general practice. One-time setup, then you're ready to go.
02
Initiate a transfer
When a patient needs their records moved, the sending practice initiates a secure transfer request to the receiving practice through Relay Health.
03
Secure handoff
Records move directly from one practice to the other over AES-256 encrypted channels. Nothing gets faxed, saved to a USB, emailed, or dropped into a shared cloud folder, and every step of the handoff is logged.
04
Transfer complete
The receiving practice gets the complete patient record with a full audit trail. Both practices have visibility over the transfer status from start to finish.
Purpose-built for general practice
We didn't want to build another file-sharing tool. Relay Health is shaped around how Australian GP practices actually handle patient transfers, down to the consent forms.
Works with your existing software
Relay takes the patient record export your clinical software already produces, including Best Practice and MedicalDirector. Nothing to install, and no change to how your team works day to day.
Patient consent workflow
Digital consent capture built into every transfer, so there are no paper forms to chase and no doubt about whether consent was recorded.
Complete audit trail
Every action on a transfer is recorded automatically to an append-only log, in the same moment it happens, so there is always a record of who did what.
Encrypted end-to-end
AES-256 encryption at rest, TLS 1.2+ in transit. Patient records are protected at every stage of the transfer.
Status tracking
See exactly where each transfer stands without ringing the other practice to ask whether the records arrived.
Talk to the other practice
Message the practice on the other end of a transfer without leaving it, and keep private notes your own team can see. No more chasing an answer by phone.
Built for Australian healthcare compliance
You can't take chances with patient data, and neither can we. Relay Health was built around Australian healthcare regulation from the start, not brought up to standard afterwards.
Privacy Act 1988
Full alignment with Australian privacy legislation governing health information.
Australian Privacy Principles
Compliant handling, storage, and disclosure of personal health information.
My Health Records Act 2012
Built for the regulatory framework around digital health records in Australia.
RACGP Standards (5th Ed)
Designed to support the Records section requirements of RACGP accreditation.
ISO 27001 aligned
Structured around international information security management standards.
ASD Essential Eight aligned
Security controls mapped to the Australian Signals Directorate mitigation strategies for cyber resilience.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Relay secure? How long does a transfer take? Find answers to common questions about Relay Health and how it works for Australian general practice.
You can still start the transfer. Relay sends the receiving practice an invitation to register and be verified, and the records are released to them once they're set up. You can see the status of the invitation the whole way through, so nothing sits in limbo.
No. Relay works alongside Best Practice, MedicalDirector, and other clinical software you already use. You export the patient record from your clinical software the way you do now, and Relay handles getting it to the other practice securely. There's nothing to install and no migration involved.
Consent capture is built into the transfer workflow itself. The patient's consent is recorded digitally before any records move, and it forms part of the audit trail for that transfer.
Records are encrypted with AES-256 at rest and TLS 1.2 or higher in transit, and handled in line with the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles.
The digital handoff itself is quick. Most of the time in a transfer today is spent chasing the other practice, and that's the part Relay removes. Both sides can see the transfer status in real time instead of ringing to check.
Let's fix patient transfers for Australia
This is a real problem with a practical fix, and we'd love to walk you through it. Try Relay yourself, or email us and we'll set up a demo for your network.