If your hospital specialist, district nurse or other Waikato DHB healthcare professional is signed up, and it’s appropriate for your condition, you can have online outpatient appointments using HealthTap.
Having online appointments by voice, video or text chat means less travel and time required for hospital appointments. You can be anywhere – at home, at the office, on the farm – as long as you have a broadband internet connection or 3G or 4G access.
You and your specialist will decide whether an online appointment is suitable for you. It can be a great option for follow-up appointments or monitoring when a physical examination isn't needed.
You need to sign up with SmartHealth and activate your account before you can have an online appointment. Find out more about getting started with SmartHealth.
Your specialist must also be signed up on HealthTap so you can add them to your care team. Many of our healthcare professionals are already signed up, if yours isn’t then ask them to sign up to SmartHealth to give you the opportunity for online appointments in future.
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SmartHealth is available to everyone covered by Waikato DHB services.
Tips for having a scheduled online appointment using an iPhone, iPad, Android phone or tablet
- Open the HealthTap app.
- Log in using your personal email address and SmartHealth password.
- Ensure notifications are turned on .
- For iPhone and iPad users, visit Settings , then scroll down and select HealthTap . Make sure that the Microphone and Camera settings are turned to on (green). If those settings are off (grey), switch them to on (green).
Start your online appointment
- Please open the HealthTap app at least 5-10 minutes before your online appointment.
- A popup will appear up to 5 minutes before the appointment’s scheduled start time. Click the Start Appointment button to start your online appointment.
Tips for having a scheduled online appointment using a computer
You can have video, voice or text-chat online appointments using your computer. For the video to work, please ensure your computer has a built-in camera or is connected to an external camera. For voice/audio to work, please make sure your computer has built-in or plugged-in external speakers and a microphone. Without a camera, microphone and speakers, your appointment will still be possible but will be via text-chat only.
Get your computer ready before your appointment
- Using a supported browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari) log in to SmartHealth at https://smarthealth.healthtap.co.nz
- Visit https://smarthealth.healthtap.co.nz/test_call to test whether your internet connection is strong enough for an online appointment. If your connection is strong enough, select the Continue button. If the test tells you that you do not have a strong enough internet connection for an online appointment, you may need to find a new network or location from which to run this test and have the online appointment.
- Continue through the webcam, microphone and speaker steps as instructed.
You may be asked to spend a minute downloading and installing a plugin if it is your first online appointment on the computer you are using. If you change computers between appointments, you may need to download and install the plugin again.
Start your online appointment
- Log in to SmartHealth at https://smarthealth.healthtap.co.nz at least 5-10 minutes before your online appointment.
- A popup will appear up to 5 minutes before the appointment’s scheduled start time. Click the Continue button to start your online appointment.
Detailed step-by-step instructions
Please see our patient support page for detailed step-by-step instructions about having online appointments.