About our content
The ºÚÁϳԹÏ, Birth and Baby website is operated by ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia and deliver comprehensive content that is clinically trustworthy, relevant, current and accessible. Our goal is to make health information easy to understand, useful, engaging, and visually appealing.
ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia's Clinical Governance Framework offers the assurance that our health services, whether provided directly by us or by contracted service providers, are both reliable and of high quality.
Learn more about our Content Governance on this page.
Content contributors
We work with accredited health writers, clinical experts and production companies to produce our health information. Here is a list of some of our regular contributors:
Medical writing and reviews
Current contributors
Script Strategic Medical Writing
Script’s team of medical writers come from a range of health professions, including medicine, pharmacy, nursing and occupational therapy. Script’s director, Galia Stephenson, has more than 15 years of health education experience, a Bachelor of Science degree (Bsc Psych, Biochem) and a Master’s degree in Neuropharmacology (MSc Pharmacol.).
WriteSource Medical
(WSM) is a bespoke medical writing, data management and biostatistics consultancy that provides professional services to the academic, government and pharmaceutical sectors. WSM’s medical writers have diverse backgrounds covering nursing, medicine, pharmacy, public health and regulatory writing.
Previous contributors
Jane Barry
Jane has 35 years of experience as a child health nurse and has qualifications in general, paediatric, immunisation and midwifery nursing. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Applied Science (Nursing).
Elsevier Health Sciences Australia
provides information services for the science, health, and technology sectors, including publishing medical journals and textbooks. In addition to writing and reviewing new health content for our websites, Elsevier conducts scheduled reviews of existing content for clinical currency and quality assurance purposes.
Ragg & Co
panel of writers and editors comes from a range of backgrounds, including health, science and law. The firm’s director, Mark Ragg (MBBS BA), has worked as a doctor in emergency departments, and as a journalist with The Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald.
Deb Hirst
Deb has a Bachelor of Nursing degree and is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC). She has worked both in hospital and in community settings as a Registered Nurse, Midwife, Childbirth Educator, Child and Family Health Nurse and Lactation Consultant.
Karyn Weitzner
is a freelance medical writer with more than 15 years’ experience writing informative and engaging educational materials both for health professionals and patients. She holds a PhD in chemistry and a Graduate Certificate in journalism.
Video content
Broken Yellow
specialises in high-quality video, animation and design for a range of productions. ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia commissioned a series of animations from Broken Yellow that guides consumers through the Australian healthcare system.
Motherbird
is a brand identity and design studio that has been working with ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia for over 10 years. Motherbird has provided logo design, infographics and animations.
Information partner videos
ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia also includes on its websites video content produced by Australian health peak bodies and other organisations. Video provides easy access to high-quality healthcare information, presented by subject matter experts, and is beneficial to consumers at all levels of 'health literacy'. Learn more about our information partners below.
Service finder
The healthdirect service finder is powered by the (NHSD), a national directory of health services and the practitioners who provide them.
The NHSD data align with other national databases, such as , ensuring consistency of data sets across the health sector. The NHSD also uses a best practice framework and consistent language to communicate across the health system by adhering to the standard and the -AU taxonomy.
The NHSD also connects with Provider Connect Australiaâ„¢ (PCAâ„¢), which is an initiative of the Australian Digital Health Agency to help healthcare provider organisations update their business information in one place. Once registered with PCAâ„¢, healthcare providers can choose to automatically send their updated business information to all their connected business partners, such as the NHSD.
Information partners
ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia works with a group almost 200 leading Australian health organisations that provide trusted content which can be accessed through our range of online services. They include peak bodies, government agencies, research institutes, educational institutes and not-for-profit organisations. An reflects a shared vision to provide relevant and reliable health and related information to Australian consumers.
Information partners are assessed for the quality, relevance and technical attributes of their online resources. Each organisation and their clinical governance and content development processes are evaluated. They adhere to our , which underpin the criteria that ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia uses when assessing organisations for .
Standards and accreditation
ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia complies with relevant external standards for websites, including:
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
The , define how organisations can make online content more accessible to people with disabilities. These guidelines also make content more usable for older individuals, whose abilities are changing with age, and often improve usability in general.
World Wide Web Access: Disability Discrimination Act Advisory Notes
These are issued by the Australian Human Rights Commission. They are intended to assist organisations that develop web resources by clarifying the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA).
Guidelines and process
ºÚÁϳԹÏ, Birth and Baby's editorial oversight occurs at 2 levels:
- Strategic development of new features and content is managed by ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia's Service and Content teams to ensure usability and overall quality of the website and its content.
- Content development and publishing is overseen by the Clinical Governance team to ensure all health and clinically related content is trustworthy, appropriate and current.
Editorial guidelines
Content on the healthdirect and ºÚÁϳԹÏ, Birth and Baby websites needs to adhere to ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia's Editorial Guidelines.
These guidelines have been produced to ensure ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia’s digital services, such as websites, tools, applications and widgets, follow best editorial practice, use consistent, correct and consumer-focused language and that all content is optimised for digital consumption and search engines.
Health literacy
Australians who use ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia’s online and other services come from a wide variety of backgrounds and demographics. They also vary in their ability to access health-related information, and to understand and make decisions about their own health – their overall ‘health literacy’.
Ensuring that content considers differing levels of ‘health literacy’ is a crucial objective.
One of the tools utilised to ensure adherence to best practice health literacy standards is the SHeLL Health Literacy Editor, developed by the at the University of Sydney ().
ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia aims to provide consumers with accessible, understandable information that will allow them to make informed decisions about their own health. Where possible, content should outline specific actions readers can take to maintain or improve their health as well as deal with illness and even emergencies.
Content development process
ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia’s ‘Pathways Process’ applies to content that is manually planned, developed, produced, published and maintained by ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia within the digital properties and channels we operate. Processes outline workflows that cover both the creation of new content and its ongoing maintenance.
ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia’s content development process includes the following phases:
- Content planning and creation – gap analysis and evidence-based planning takes place regularly to inform content briefs; content is commissioned from accredited health writers, licensed from clinically approved sources or written in-house by ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia staff.
- Clinical and editorial reviews – clinical content is fact checked and peer reviewed by the appropriate health professionals; all information is editorially reviewed and sub-edited in line with ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia’s editorial guidelines.
- Classification and publishing – content is classified to ensure accurate clinical categorisation and metadata are optimised for search; publishing reviews are conducted prior to live release.
Information and data management
ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia manages and maintains the , a taxonomy of medical, health and human services-related concepts that reflect the current Australian environment. Concepts, including medicine terms, are mapped to standard terminologies, such as , to enhance linked data opportunities.
Content maintenance and quality assurance
All content is reviewed on a regular basis to make sure it is complete, accurate and trustworthy. Our standard review frequency is every 2 years, with some topics reviewed more often due to the nature of the subject matter. ‘Last reviewed’ dates appear clearly on individual pages.
ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia’s Clinical Governance and Content teams periodically audit samples of published content, and consumer feedback is considered regularly, to ensure a user-centric approach and continuous improvements.
In addition to these regular reviews of specific health content, our associated processes are audited and assessed periodically to ensure best practice content governance.
Sources and attribution
Our health information is evidence-based, with content supported by reliable sources. In addition to published articles and reviews in peer-reviewed journals, ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia aims to use Australian, non-commercial sources, including:
- clinical practice guidelines and/or position statements
- Australian government department statements
- Australian data and statistics
- assessed partner organisations
Original (‘first hand’) sources of the material are referenced on our web pages. All references cited can be accessed by a link from the sources section on each page.
Advertising policy
ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia’s websites do not receive funding from advertising the products or services of other organisations. We don’t promote the interests of any person or organisation who may financially benefit as a result of information placed on the website.
ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia ensures the company makes information available on its websites with the primary objective of providing an important health service to users of that information.
Our team
Our editorial leadership team ensures the content on the ºÚÁϳԹÏ, Birth and Baby website is developed in accordance with ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia's guidelines and governance processes. The team provides strategic direction and oversees the external contributors who write and review our content.
Rachel Worboys, Clinical Lead, ºÚÁϳԹÏ, Birth and Baby
BA Nursing, GradDip Midwifery and GradDip Health Administration
Rachel is ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia’s clinical lead for the ºÚÁϳԹÏ, Birth and Baby service. As a member of the Clinical Governance division, Rachel oversees the quality and clinical trustworthiness of the website and contact centre in line with our Clinical Governance Framework.
Andrea Booth, Senior Content Editor
BA, MAJourn
Andrea ensures the editorial quality of content across ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia’s digital channels. This includes making sure it complies with health literacy principles. She also consults and advises on media and communications throughout the business, drawing on over 15 years’ experience as a journalist, editor and sub-editor for national and international news outlets, and as an editorial consultant for intergovernmental organisations.
Camilla Svensson, Head of Content
BA Communications
Camilla leads ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia’s Digital Content team, which is responsible for delivering the content strategies governing the online components of our services. Key activities include content planning, commissioning, production, publishing and continuing quality assurance and optimisation.
James Humffray, Information Manager
BA Library and Information Science
James oversees the design, delivery and management of the taxonomies, ontologies and vocabularies that support ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Australia’s online properties. He assists with information architecture development and management, including providing input to content modelling as channels are developed and evolve.
Last reviewed: May 2025