Our mission is to build a more connected healthcare system so that we can make patient-centred care a reality. We want to unite those who share this purpose, regardless of professional identity. Learn together. Support one another. Break down the silos and make good things happen. If that sounds like you, then this is for you!
Traversity is about providing secure spaces online to enable those working in healthcare to connect with one another. We offer two different online spaces - a community discussion forum and private communication tools (secure chat and video conferencing). Our online environments are hosted in Australia and free of advertising. We do not sell your data to third parties.
The community was the original idea for Traversity. Lauren was looking for somewhere to participate in interdisciplinary discussions, engage in peer support and shared learning but she couldn't find what she was looking for. She thought about starting a Facebook group, but she didn't like the FOMO associated with news feed style platforms or the fact that they share your data. She thought about starting a Slack channel, but that seemed a bit too exclusive and kind of contradicted the whole 'breaking down silos' vision. She thought about a blog or newsletter, but that seemed too unidirectional and lacking in engagement. A discussion forum felt like the right balance of being private and independent, but open to anyone who shared the common interest in building a more connected healthcare system.
No. There is no charge to join the Traversity community. Most of our members already pay fees to be part of professional associations and other organisations. We want to bring these communities together, not create another silo.
It's important to us that there's a sense of trust between our community members. For this reason, we have some privacy barriers in place. While many of the discussion forums are visible to the public, there are some categories we maintain as members-only, including a clinical discussion forum restricted to clinicians who have provided evidence of their professional qualification.
We also want our online space to be as real life as possible. We don't want anonymous trolls or people who aren't who they say they are. Therefore, only signed in members are able to participate in discussion forums or contribute content. If people are rude and disrespectful using their real names...well, that's what moderation is for.
Any ideas and content that is generously shared on this platform are owned by those that contribute them. This platform is to support individuals, organisations and associations in developing and sharing their content, not obtaining IP or copyright
Most communication in healthcare is uni-directional. A referral letter. A report. An update. This is communication but it is not collaborative practice. That requires two-way communication.
Unfortunately, participating in two-way communication often requires a significant amount of unbillable work. Phone calls back and forth to find a mutually agreeable time that works. Challenge in finding a time and place to conduct a multidisciplinary case conference.
Secure chat provides a method of asynchronous and synchronous two-way communication, either by text, voice or video. You can set up chat rooms and control the access to them. You can configure the settings of these chat rooms to ensure you are immediately alerted to important messages, or set them to mute, enabling you to switch off and concentrate on the task at hand (or relax out of office hours). Unlike email, you will not risk having important messages lost in the noise of an overflowing inbox.
Secure communication tools tend to be designed either for general consumers or large organisations. Products designed for large organisations typically come with a large price tag and a resource intensive training requirement both in the setup and ongoing onboarding of new users. That level of investment is excessive for many of us who are self-employed or running small businesses. Products that target general consumers (e.g. WhatsApp) are more affordable and easy to use, but they often fall short of the security standards required to meet best practice standards in Australian healthcare. Our secure chat provides the utility and flexibility of consumer products, while offering the security and privacy of those for organisations.
Secure chat is great, but it's pretty useless if you don't have anybody to talk to. We have set it up so that you can connect with anyone within the Traversity network or anyone using a chat provider that uses the Matrix protocol. When you subscribe you also receive a number of guest passes to enable you to invite collaborators into the Traversity network to communicate securely without any cost to them.
Since corona, secure video-conferencing tools have become a staple communication tool for professionals. Purpose-built telehealth platforms are great for clinicians who make regular use of them, but for others they are overkill. Some clinicians are just looking for occasional use of a system for mixed purposes - a patient interaction here, a case conference there. Our video conferencing enables flexibility of use while maintaining the privacy of all participants (including you). You can schedule a video conference with an individual or multiple participants without having to disclose any personal details such as email address or phone number. Easy.
