Service Seeker - a vital link

Knowing where and how to access community services is vital for many Australians who are facing difficult situations and need support. We are fortunate that we live in a civil society where we generally support the idea of tax-payers money being spent on the provision of quality health and welfare services.

However, one of the difficulties is that as the funding comes from the Commonwealth Government, state governments, local government, the philanthropic sector and the charitable sector, it is hard to coordinate the direct service delivery system.

For the past twenty years, Infoxchange has been providing the link between people needing a service and the direct service delivery system. This has been achieved through the building and maintenance of what is today Australia's most extensive online directory, Service Seeker, which lists over 275 000 services that are working to improve the health and wellbeing of communities across Australia.

Unlike most other community service directories Service Seeker has a proactive updating and maintenance process which means it is not reliant on agencies and services having to remember to update information about themselves. This makes the Service Seeker unique and ensures a quality and accuracy that is unsurpassed in this field.

This is seen as critical for many of the organisations that use the Service Seeker as their business critical central directory. Organisations such as the NSW Government, Medibank Health Solutions, Brisbane South Division of General Practice, Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, Northern Territory Council of Social Services, Cairns Regional Council, City of Melbourne and City of Yarra use custom designed versions of Service Seeker.

Many of these organisations see the value in collaboration and partnership and rather than trying to establish or maintain their own directories which not only saves their resources but also reduces duplication.

Service Seeker has also become a critical enabler for health in Australia supporting electronic referral and service coordination for over 5000 users. It also supports the New South Wales Government’s ServiceLink directory and referral tool used by workers across the NSW Government, non-government human services organisations and the justice sector. 

Infoxchange is proud that Lifeline Australia is the latest organisation to see the value of using the Service Seeker as the main source of directory information in their call centres. Lifeline provides a critical service supporting many thousands of Australians facing a crisis and they need a service directory of outstanding accuracy and currency. 

Find out more about customised service directories