Health Assessment
Australian Refugee Health Practice Guide
Primary care for people from refugee backgrounds
A Refugee Health Assessment can be provided within 12 months of arrival.
As with all health assessments, consent is required before a health assessment is performed. The item numbers are the same as for all health assessments (703-707).
The health assessment should include:
- A detailed history
- Examination
- Problem list and
- Management plan.
A copy of the health assessment should be provided to the patient.
More information:
- Commonwealth Department of Health
- Fact sheet – Medicare items 701,703, 705 and 707
- Questions and Answers
- Medicare Health Assessments
Offshore health assessment and the HAPlite system
Includes information about:
- Immigration medical examination
- Departure health checks
- Health undertakings
- Deferrals
- Health Alerts
- HAPLite
- Tip sheets for HAPlite
- Complex medical issues – specialised case management
Translated Resources for Patients
Informed Consent
Metro South Health have developed videos in multiple languages about informed consent so that patients clearly understand the health problem and agree to what the health worker is going to do. View the videos here.
Glossary of terms
Seeing a Doctor, Specialist or health professional (Centre for Culture, Ethnicity and Health)
Health Assessment of Syrians
- IOM Health Assessment Findings – Syria 2015
- IOM Prevalence Data – Syria 2015
- Refugees from Syria (Cultural Orientation Resource Centre Project, 2014)
- Syrian health profile (WHO)
- Culture, Context and the Mental Health and Psychosocial Wellbeing of Syrians (UNHCR, 2015)
- The Syria crisis, displacement and protection (Forced Migration Review, 2014)
- FACT SHEET – Australia’s response to the Syrian and Iraqi humanitarian crisis
- Population Profile: Syrian Refugees (Citizenship and Immigration Canada)
Refugee Health Assessment Template
Refugee Health Assessment Template (2018)
- PDF version available
- RTF versions to suit Medical Director and Best Practice – coming soon.
The templates
- Assist the documentation of a refugee health assessment
- Contain prompts to cover the information that needs to be collected
- Contain tips on how to conduct a Refugee Health Assessment.
Resources to support Health Assessments
- Recommended Pathology Investigations for refugee new arrivals, including children (Updated Oct 2018)
- Managing the Refugee Patient– includes information about how to perform a Refugee Health Assessment (Dr. Kay, 2015)
- ASID (Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases) Refugee Health Guidelines (2016)
- Transfer of patient records for newly arrived humanitarian entrants (July 2019)
- Hearing Services Program – Australian Government Department of Health
- Resources about Cultural Sensitivity
- Further support is available from Refugee Health Connect (Brisbane South and North).
Videos – Refugee Health Assessment
Health Practitioners discussing how to conduct a Refugee Health Assessment were recorded at a Refugee Health Education in 2017. Some are available below and more videos of this event are available here.