The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) says that e-health strategies need to take this into account and find out how rural and remote GPs can receive the resources and support they will need.
Dr Kathryn Kirkpatrick, Chair of the RACGP National Rural Faculty and rural GP in Dalby, Queensland, said that GPs often have to deal with incomplete and fragmented information and waste time collecting information and duplicating treatment activities.
"Rural and remote GPs may not have access to the required health information and have to manually coordinate care with other providers. This can often be exacerbated in rural and remote areas where health system access and equity issues have long been recognised.
"Rural and remote areas stand to benefit the most from e-health because of its potential for helping to overcome the effects of distance. However, e -health will be used in a different way in rural areas and decision makers have to recognise that there are different requirements for resources, infrastructure and training", said Dr Kirkpatrick.
Dr Kirkpatrick said that often the problem can be as basic as an unreliable electricity supply in remote areas and while plans for the National Broadband Network are being developed, it will not help some of those areas in most need.
"Ten per cent of Australia - or towns of less than 1000 people on mainland Australia" will not have access to the higher speed network and this includes many single doctor towns.
"The RACGP National Rural Faculty has over 5,000 financial members and many of them are the sole GP in the town and don't even have a reliable electricity supply. If their power shuts down, sometimes for long periods, everything stops. It is as basic as that, so w e need to know that there will be timely and affordable technical support in rural and remote Australia.
"We need to get this right by talking with rural GPs, which is the best way to find out what is essential for them," said Dr Kirkpatrick.
To ensure that GPs can deliver the highest stan dard of care to their patients, the RACGP is ensuring that the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) is informed of what is reasonable, workable and useful for GPs including rural GPs when leading the progression of e-health in Australia . N EHTA is the lead organisation supporting the national vision for e-health in Australia.
Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, National Clinical Lead for NEHTA is a practicing General Medical Practitioner and a former President of the Australian Medical Association (AMA).
"There are many inequities for Australians living in rural and remote areas. They generally have poorer health than their major city counterparts - reflected in higher levels of illness and health risk factors which are present later and often require care away from home increasing the overall rates of mortality."
"E-health will allow better sharing of health information among multiple care providers, locally and at a distance, making rural and remote communities and their GPs major beneficiaries of a national e-health infrastructure. But without national coordination, a genuine understanding and the addressing of rural and remote needs, we risk having e-health solutions that don't connect up all parts of the health system missing the opportunity of improving health care in the bush," Dr Haikerwal said.
"Targeted, planned and co-ordinated implementation of e-health in rural and remote Australia, making good deficiencies in infrastructure, working with health care providers and consumers to support their needs will achieve the desired benefits and equity in health outcomes for rural and remote Australians. It can allow access to services remotely to support care provided locally and will provide more accurate, timely and reliable transfer of clinical information."
"However, if the issues particular to rural and remote areas can be addressed, then we should see a measurable increase in patient safety and quality outcomes."
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Quelle/Source: Medical News Today, 19.05.2010
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