Edition 9

CheckUP Connect

Welcome to the July edition of CheckUP Connect. Queensland Small Business Month kept our Industry Workforce Advisors and NDIS Business Connect team on the road in May. June and the start of this month has our team connecting with and meeting health and community service employers from Brisbane to rural and remote regions. The same themes came up everywhere: finding staff, keeping them and managing growing demand. It’s a strong reminder of why place‑based, practical support matters.

In this edition, you’ll find an invite to two free online workshops on Queensland’s Child Safe Standards and the Reportable Conduct Scheme, an update on how disability inclusion is helping Queensland businesses grow stronger and details on Queensland’s Mental Health Week Community Event Grants, now open for applications. We’re also looking ahead to the 2026 Health Gateway Forum in October, bringing schools and industry together to shape Queensland’s future health workforce.

How outreach changed the trajectory of a patient with diabetes in regional QLD

For years, Dr Tom Dover’s patient Sophia managed type 1 diabetes the way most people do. Four insulin injections a day, a glucose monitor on her arm, and a constant stream of small decisions about food, activity, and timing. Research published in Scientific Data shows that people with type 1 diabetes make over 180 health-critical decisions a day. The relentless mental load takes a toll.

Sophia was doing everything right. But the numbers still told a worrying story. Only around 30 percent of her glucose readings were landing in the healthy range and her long-term blood sugar average was well above target. Without stable glucose control, she was facing a future that could include heart disease, kidney damage, nerve damage and vision loss.

What Sophia needed wasn’t more effort. She needed better tools and someone who knew what those tools could do.

Dr Tom Dover is an endocrinologist based in Brisbane who has spent most of his 12-year career travelling to communities across Queensland to see patients who would otherwise have no access to a specialist of his kind. Through CheckUP’s outreach program, Sophia had been seeing Dr Dover at Bidgerdii Community Health Service for around five or six years. Long enough for him to know her situation well, and to know she was a strong candidate for a semi-automatic insulin pump.

The pump connects to a glucose sensor worn on the body and adjusts insulin delivery automatically in response to rising and falling levels. It doesn’t replace the person managing their diabetes, but it takes on a significant share of the background work. Dr Dover describes it as the technology holding the patient’s hand.

The barrier was cost. Insulin pumps are not subsidised for most adults with type 1 diabetes in Australia unless they hold private health insurance, and the upfront price sits between $7,000 and $10,000. For many people in regional communities, that’s simply not a realistic option.

So Dr Dover approached Medtronic, one of the major pump manufacturers, presented Sophia’s case and asked whether they could help. They approved the request and supplied the pump at no cost.

What happened next?

Lisa Grice, Sophia’s diabetes educator in Rockhampton, handled the setup and training. Within three days, the results were clear.

Her long-term blood sugar average came down to target for the first time. The dangerous lows that had been a regular feature of her life have essentially stopped.

Sophia sleeps better now. There’s less anxiety around food, fewer alarms waking her in the night and significantly less long-term health risk sitting on the horizon. For Sophia, the change wasn’t just clinical. It was the kind of shift you feel in your daily life.

Dr Dover is direct about this. Diabetes technology has advanced so quickly that GPs are not equipped to keep up with it, and the care Sophia received required someone who had spent years building exactly this kind of expertise.

He’d like to see more patients experience the same outcome. Government subsidies for insulin pumps are being lobbied for, and lower-cost options exist for people who want to try the technology first. But for most people right now, access comes down to private health cover, geography and the occasional doctor who knows who to call.

Sophia was fortunate. That shouldn’t be the deciding factor.

Edition 89

This month in Reaching Out

Our health services newsletter keeps you across what is happening in regional, rural and remote health across Queensland. In this edition we congratulate Goondir CEO Floyd Leedie on his Australian AM Award, say a fond thank you and farewell to Dr Harry after many years of specialist care on Thursday Island and break down what the expanded bulk-billing changes mean for rural practices.

The annual provider survey is open too, so if you deliver outreach services your feedback will help shape the year ahead. Have a read, and if you want it landing in your inbox each month, subscribe below.

William (Bill) Hinds

Physiotherapist, Hinterland Physio Group

There’s a version of physiotherapy that happens in well-equipped city clinics, with referral networks a phone call away and specialists down the road. Then there’s Kilkivan.

For William (Bill) Hinds, a physiotherapist from Hinterland Physio Group who has been doing outreach work in the small South East Queensland town for several years, the contrast couldn’t be sharper. And he wouldn’t trade it.

When the referral network is you

In a single day, Bill might develop an exercise program for a cardiovascular patient he’d normally refer to an exercise physiologist, complete an in-home assessment and order support aids that would typically involve an OT, and treat a vestibular (your body’s balance and spatial awareness system) patient he’d usually send to a specialist.

That breadth isn’t incidental to the work. It is the work.

Planning for the long game

One of the less obvious ways rural outreach reshapes clinical practice is in how you think about time. Bill and his team visit Kilkivan once a month, which means the standard week-to-week treatment rhythm simply doesn’t apply.

That kind of long-horizon planning, building a program a patient can sustain largely on their own between visits, is a skill that transfers directly back into everyday practice. It demands a level of patient education and self-management design that busy metro clinics don’t always require.

Creativity as a clinical skill

Limited resources have a way of sharpening thinking. In Kilkivan, the pools, gyms, recovery devices, and support networks that city-based clinicians take for granted are often unavailable or hard to access. That constraint, Bill says, is actually one of the most fulfilling parts of the work.

It’s a form of clinical creativity that doesn’t get taught in a textbook. The ability to problem-solve in real time, with what’s in front of you, for someone who has no other option.

Showing up matters more than you think

Beyond the clinical skill-building, Bill speaks about something harder to measure but equally important: the power of simply being a consistent presence for patients in rural Queensland communities who have very few other options.

That reassurance sometimes extends well beyond physiotherapy. Patients raise things outside Bill’s scope, but he sees that as part of the role. Listening, and helping point them in the right direction.

In communities like Kilkivan, a health professional is rarely just a health professional. They’re often the most consistent point of contact the healthcare system offers.

Why hands-on still wins

With telehealth expanding rapidly across rural and regional Queensland, it’s worth asking what in-person Outreach offers that a video call can’t. For Bill, the answer is clear.

Telehealth has its place, he’s clear about that. But there are things that simply can’t happen through a screen.

What he’d tell a younger physio

If a physiotherapist came to Bill wanting to fast-track their development, his advice would be direct.

That combination of clinical growth and genuine community impact is what keeps practitioners like Bill making the drive to Kilkivan, month after month.