IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The South West Alliance of Rural Health (SWARH) is comprised of over 15 facilities over 60,000 square kilometres in rural Victoria, and has teamed up with Cisco and Dimension Data to deploy the teleconferencing company's new Virtualisation Experience Infrastructure offering (VXI) to improve communication and patient care.

VXI sees an endpoint device deployed next to a virtualised PC that optimises videoconferencing and reduces load on the datacentre.

Portland District Health (PDH) accident and emergency manager Dennyel Smith said the system allowed offsite specialists to interact with the hospital.

“Portland District Health can now access expert advice for most critical care patients at the flick of a switch,” she said.

Telehealth, by which patients and even doctors can consult specialists via online video, is not new to this country.

Parts of Victoria have been using it for five years.

It began with health administrators using video conferencing and has now progressed into doctor-to-patient and doctor-to-specialists, or patient-to-specialists consultations by online camera.

The Regional Cystic Fibrosis e-Health and Tele-monitoring Programme is a new pilot project being funded by the Victorian Coalition Government’s Broadband Enabled Innovation Programme. This programme is being managed by Monash University.

The Royal District Nursing Service (RDNS) bagged the award for their broadband-enabled project Healthy, Happy and at Home during the 4th Ageing Asia Investment Forum in Singapore.

The project allows a nurse to visit a patient at home through broadband technology to help clients avoid hospital stays and reduce the health system’s overall burden.

A medical practitioner before entering politics, Dr Hames and the hospital's emergency department nurses, including Di Dixon who had to pretend to be a patient suffering an acute asthma attack, took part in the demonstration.

It linked them with emergency specialist Bob Graydon in Perth.

In the middle of the night, in a remote bush community in the Kimberley, a patient has been rushed into the local health clinic in a critical condition.

The nearest doctor is two hour's drive away; the on-call nurse is in desperate need of guidance.

But thanks to a pilot program being run in the far north, the nurse can now whip open a laptop and communicate in real time with a doctor in Broome.

He monitors the truck driver's vitals, checks his medical history and asks detailed questions about the pain.

It sounds like your average emergency room scene but there's one big catch.

As Insite reported (April/May 2011), the NEC/La Trobe University robot Matilda was shown to have benefits during trials in aged care, however, a new report from the University of Melbourne shows the technology is still far too expensive for use outside of research

A new government telehealth program aims to “close the healthcare and education gap experienced by remote communities in the Northern Territory,” said Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Minister Stephen Conroy.

The program is jointly funded by the Commonwealth and NT governments and is part of a $20 million digital regions initiative.

The national broadband network (NBN) telehealth pilot program will more readily connect healthcare providers with patients, especially in regional, rural and outer metropolitan areas.

A telehealth pilot is being trialled in an area of NBN coverage – with first round of services to be operational by July 2012.

The incentives include $620 million in Medicare rebates, a $6000 bonus payment for health practitioners when they use the new technology to provide a consultation for the first time, and $20 every time a telehealth service is bulk-billed in the first year.

Roxon said the generous rebates were necessary to encourage health professionals to use telehealth in their day to day practice, because telehealth was critical to delivering quality healthcare to all Australians.

Doctors already involved in Australia's embryonic telemedicine sector, which allows patients to consult specialists hundreds or thousands of kilometres away, say the Government's plans to build a $43 billion national fibre-optic network is a good first step to encourage further roll-out of such hi-tech services.

The projects include $2.48 million toward a South Australian Digital Telehealth Network project aimed improving the state’s distance consultation services – including 24/7 triage and liaison services – and $1.8 million for a NSW Ambulance clinical outreach program for new medical record, administration and e-learning systems at 190 ambulance stations.

The projects are part of the Digital Regions Initiative and will be linked to the rollout of the National Broadband Network.

The trials will focus on telehealth services for older Australians with chronic conditions, such as cardiovascular disease.

Services available through the project include monitoring of wellbeing indicators such as blood pressure and glucose levels, home video consultations and healthy living coaching.

The ultimate success of e-health programs in Australia will come down to how change management and adoption processes are put in place for clinicians, patients and politicians alike, a key industry leader told attendees of the World Computer Congress 2010 in Brisbane.

Adam Powick, a consultant with Deloitte and lead author of the 2008 Australian National eHealth Strategy report approved by health ministers, said that political programs had to be geared towards financials and other motivations that would create incentives for clinicians to adopt programs such as the individual e-health identifier released by Medicare in July, and the personally-controlled voluntary e-health record the Government plans to roll out by 2012.

Federal Treasurer, Wayne Swan, has announced an additional $2.2 billion in funding for the Australian health system, bringing the Government's total investment to $7.3 billion over five years, and $23 billion over the next decade. Of the new funding, $467 million will go to voluntary electronic health records.

Under the former $120 million Clever Networks program to roll out broadband infrastructure and services in rural and remote areas, telehealth projects have proven successful.

Introducing personal e-health records will slash $627 million off the health budget every year, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon says a national e-health system will allow health providers to share patient records and improve care.

As part of the trial, telehealth monitoring units and videoconferencing systems will be installed in homes and primary healthcare clinics of veterans with chronic diseases and those aged over 65 in the sites of Armidale and Kiama Downs. Under the rollout of the NBN, each of the sites are expected to encompass up to 6000 premises connected to speeds of up to one gigabit per second (Gbps).