Nellie® is a simple and easy to use telehealth service that interacts with patients via SMS (text messages) to their mobile phone.

She is clinician-led and works as an extension of the clinical team to help patients manage their own health beyond the consultation room, supporting them to create healthy routines and patterns that lead to the development of long-term habits. Her overarching goal is to improve clinical outcomes and patient experiences via a clinician-led, self-management approach.

Nellie sends patients a mixture of prompts for clinical measurements, such as BP readings or respiratory rate, alongside tailored advice and information to help patients look after their health and lifestyle needs and provide insight to clinicians between scheduled appointments. Automating clinical conversations and processes frees up time and resources and reduces clinical workload for clinicians and the healthcare ecosystem.

Nellie is not an app, internet chat-bot, or an AI (Artificial Intelligence). There is no cost to the patient and no special equipment is required – Nellie works on any mobile phone that can send and receive SMS (text messages).

Put simply, Nellie:

Provide a solution for multiple cohorts of patients

 Improves clinical outcomes

Releases clinical capacity

Improves clinician experience

Improves patient experience

Is simple to implement and operate

Helps clinicians help patients help themselves

Nellie and Florence have been proven to:

Save 20 minutes

per patient of HCP time

Increase adherence

of patients to prescribed treatments and plans

Nellie is the persona that patients interact with via SMS (text messages), just as they do every day with their family and friends. Nellie’s persona is designed so that ‘she’ feels friendly and familiar to the patient, so to patients, Nellie is almost like a real, caring, and supportive person.

Nellie is powered by evidence-based algorithms and over 200,000 patients worldwide have benefitted from the support of Nellie (in Australia) and Florence (internationally). With experience across many conditions, over 97% of patients find it easy and helpful to work with Nellie. Nellie is generally a short-term intervention until a patient is confidently and consistently managing their condition. However, some patients benefit from a longer duration on Nellie, and can receive support across a wide range of conditions and purposes such as:

  • Chronic disease management
  • Walking or physical activity plans
  • Reminders (daily weight, medications, check ins)
  • Home monitoring and tracking (blood pressure, blood glucose, symptoms)
  • Managing diabetes
  • Cardiac health
  • Smoking cessation
  • Lifestyle habits (snacking, teeth brushing)
  • Mental health and wellbeing
  • COVID-19


Nellie was developed in 2008 in the UK using the underpinning methodology and technology Simple Telehealth. Nellie is part of an international community of practice including teams using Nellie (in Australia) and her sister Flo/Florence (in the UK and USA).

Nellie is supported by SEMPHN for clinical teams across South Eastern Melbourne, where ‘she’ has helped more than 2000 patients work towards their health management goals. Nellie is now available Australia-wide. SEMPHN can help you understand how ‘she’ can help your organisation and patients. Contact the team at nellie@semphn.org.au to get started on Nellie or fill in the form below to book in a demonstration today.

Looking for the Nellie login page?

The Nellie platform is available for registered users only.

Local case studies

  • Case 1: Ruling out hypertension

    Mrs JW is a 50-year-old woman with anxiety, occasional mild depression, domestic stress and chronic pain resulting from a workplace injury. Blood pressure (BP) readings taken at consultation over past few years were erratic and elevated (up to 190 systolic and 110 diastolic). The last one (sitting) was 184/105, pulse 78. Three weeks before intervention patient was due to travel to South East Asia. Stress was high due to worry about blood pressure. 

    Over 2 weeks, Nellie asked for BP readings. At end of period, patient again saw GP, who was able to reassure her she did not have hypertension. The experience was stress free for the patient and the GP was not involved during the two weeks. It was easy for them both to see the collected results and Nellie automatically calculated the average.

  • Case 2: Medication reminder

    Ms DM is a 64-year-old woman with a history of acquired brain injury (ABI) following 4 x cerebrovascular accidents (CVA) in 2014. She also has Type 2 diabetes, hypertension and depression. Her ABI affects her short-term memory. She was a new patient to the general practice nurse-led clinic and presented with uncontrolled blood pressure (BP) ranging from 150/90 -168/98 and an HbA1c of 8.6%.

    Nellie was introduced at her care planning session and Ms DM was happy to take up the opportunity for an automated medication reminder from Nellie at 8 am every morning to remind her to take her morning medication. She was on this program for several weeks and had only missed her anti-hypertensive medications on two occasions. As a result, her BP had reduced to 130/85, and her fasting blood glucose levels were also beginning to reduce, although she reported that she occasionally forgot to take her evening dose of insulin.

  • Case 3: Walking

    Mr CI is a 69-year-old man with a history of a cerebrovascular accident (CVA) 18 months ago. He recovered well, attended a rehab program but had found it difficult to maintain his motivation to keep active. His weight had crept up, as had his blood pressure.

    Mr CI really liked the idea of being accountable for his daily step measurements and had used Nellie on a daily basis for 3 months to provide motivational messages and to track his daily step count. As a result, he was able to maintain his increased activity at a level of 5-6,000 steps a day and has been discharged from the program.

  • Case 4: Walking

    Mr and Mrs S are a retired couple and both have chronic health conditions. Mrs S had a knee replacement 3 years ago and has had painful knees since, which limited her capacity for physical activity. Mr S was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes 40 years ago. Diabetes complications included retinopathy leading to partial blindness for which he had surgery. He was treated with 30 units insulin/d. He has a pacemaker. In a care planning appointment, they both identified weight loss as a goal.

    They commenced a Nellie walking protocol in January 2018 which provided automated daily motivational messages and tracked their daily walking.

    Results 3 months after starting with Nellie: 

    Mrs S lost 7 kilos and is now walking pain-free. Her glucose reduced from 10.7 to 6.5.

    Mr S weight lost 10 kilos, HbA1c 11.2% > 6.9%, BP 180/95 > 120/65, Insulin dose 30 u/d > 5 u/d with a significant reduction in the frequency of hypos.

  • Case 5: Optimising blood pressure

    Ms M is a 70 year-old female with Type 1 diabetes, which was diagnosed at age 30. She had presented with microvascular complications and more specifically, deteriorating retinopathy. She presented to the diabetes educator, and her main concern was the potential for losing her eyesight. Her glycaemic control was excellent (HbA1c 6.5% from 8.0% 12 months previously) and glucose time in range above 90%. She had a history of hypertension and was on anti-hypertensive medication. At the time of her consultation, her blood pressure (BP) was 145/85 mmHg. Her goal was to reduce microvascular risk factors and she chose to focus on optimising her blood pressure control.

    It was not clear whether her raised blood pressure was related to sub-optimal control or white coat syndrome so the patient commenced on Nellie with a hypertension protocol. 

    Over the following 4 weeks, she measured her BP at home and submitted the results via Nellie. Nellie responded to her raised blood pressure readings to reinforce the target blood pressure range and her anti-hypertensive medication was intensified. 

    This resulted in her systolic BP consistently being less than 130mmHg. Using Nellie has enabled Ms M to reduce the risk of further deterioration of her retinopathy (as well as other vascular risk factors) caused by raised blood pressure and has provided her with reassurance that her BP is now optimally controlled.

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