Sexual health resources developed in collaboration with HealthPathways NSW and Australasian Society for HIV, Viral Hepatitis and Sexual Health Medicine (ASHM)

Country SA PHN Newsletter June 2025

HealthPathways SA is developing a number of sexual health pathways for use by SA clinicians. These sexual health pathways were initially developed by HealthPathways NSW in collaboration with ASHM to create nationally relevant evidence-based resources.

HealthPathways is adapting these pathways to the South Australian health system, incorporating SA resources and local referral guidance.

Our newly released pathways include:

• Vulvovaginal Candidiasis - Community HealthPathways South Australia
• Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID) - Community HealthPathways South Australia

GP Clinical Editor, Dr Suzi Pedler provided an overview of the pathways:

“The Vulvovaginal Candidiasis pathway provides clear information about investigating possible pathogens and managing acute, recurrent, and chronic episodes. We discuss how risk reduction can support prevention, and provide information about the potential for topical antifungals to compromise barrier contraception.

“The Pelvic Inflammatory Disease pathway supports practitioners to make a clinical diagnosis of PID, arrange appropriate investigations whilst having a low threshold for commencing recommended treatment, understand criteria for emergency assessment and consider treatment of sexual partners. Patient resources include options designed for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients.”

Our next group of pathways in the development include Contact Tracing (Partner Notification), Sexual Health Screening and an updated Gonorrhoea pathway. We welcome contact from any clinicians wishing to contribute or stay updated with our development process.

A suite of gynaecology pathways are also currently in development. We will shortly send out the following draft pathways for comment and feedback: Endometriosis, Persistent Pelvic Pain and Dysmenorrhea.

HPSA are seeking interested health professionals to review these drafts, if you would like to contribute, or receive updates on the development process, please email; [email protected] or [email protected].

HealthPathways SA is a partnership between SA Health, Adelaide PHN and Country SA PHN.  

Published on: June 5, 2025