COVID Vaccine Booking Program

About the Vaccine Clinic Finder Connect

Updating your Vaccine Clinic Finder listing using the Vaccine Clinic Finder Connect

Vaccine Clinic Finder Connect (VCF Connect) is a secure, authenticated online portal that allows practice owners and managers to update your general practice’s vaccination services information online. You can update the information patients see about your practice in the Vaccine Clinic Finder (VCF) including address, phone number, opening hours, online booking details and additional information for patients.

This allows your practice to ‘Connect’ with the VCF and be ‘Found’ by patients.

Practices who currently use an online appointment booking system that is compatible with the VCF can also choose to have full integration of their online appointments on the VCF, allowing patients to seamlessly book COVID-19 vaccine appointments via a national system.

The register of Vaccine Clinic Finder Compatible Software can be found here.

If your practice uses an online appointment booking system that is not currently compatible with VCF you can include a link to your website where patients can book their appointments online. You can discuss this further with your online booking system provider.

If your practice is not using an online booking system there is an opportunity to use the Commonwealth booking system via HealthEngine for your COVID-19 vaccination bookings, which is free of charge. You can get set up with the Commonwealth booking system here.

More information on getting started with online appointment booking systems is available here.

Using VCF Connect is not mandatory and you can continue to request updates to your practice details via your PHN, however, these updates will not occur as quickly as they would if you use VCF connect which is within 2 hours. Once you start using VCF Connect, updates can no longer be made by your PHN.

VCF Connect is operated by the Australian Digital Health Agency on behalf of the Department of Health.

The current process for updating your practice details:

Practices send updated details to their PHN

The PHN provides these to the Department of Health

The Department of Health provides these to Healthdirect

Healthdirect then update details to the public facing VCF site for patients

The process for updating your practice details with VCF Connect

Practices update their details in the VCF Connect

Updated details appear in the public facing VCF site for patients

 

The benefits offered by the Vaccine Clinic Finder Connect for general practice

VCF Connect updates your details usually within 2 hours from the time of the request being saved online. This will reduce the current administrative burden of managing these details via your Primary Health Network (PHN) and improve data quality and efficiency.

VCF Connect will:

  • provide information on your practice and your available vaccination appointments
  • minimise administration time for your general practice team
  • make it easier for your patients to book in for their vaccination
  • provide patients with clarity on the type of vaccines your practice offers.

Factsheet 6 – RACGP Connect and be Found ‘About-the-Vaccine-Clinic-Finder-Connect’

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The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land and sea in which we live and work, we recognise their continuing connection to land, sea and culture and pay our respects to Elders past, present and future.