Opposition leader Barry O’Farrell last week pledged $2 million to set up a Telehealth Technology Centre at Penrith.
Staff at the centre, which would be based at Nepean Hospital, would work with acute, primary and community care clinicians, universities, the Federal Government and the non-government sector to explore opportunities which provide care closer to home.
Sydney University professor of surgery and Nepean Hospital head of urology Mohamed Khadra said, with Telehealth technology a patient could be in Penrith, or from areas such as Broken Hill, Mudgee, or Wagga Wagga.
“The patient can front up to their local doctor, where there’s a computer with the technology ... which would provide for input devices such as X-rays or blood results,” he said.
“You can have a patient in a distant environment, and I can do a full video-conference in my own rooms (through the use of programs such as Skype or iChat), with the patient either in their own home or in the room of a GP in Mudgee, Broken Hill or dozens of the rural or regional areas.
“I have a patient from Mudgee who drives 4 1/2 hours, I look at a PSA result, which is a blood test, I tell her it’s fine and she drives 4 1/2 hours back.”
Shadow Health Minister Jillian Skinner said when she first met doctors at Nepean Hospital, they raised with her the benefits of a telehealth centre. “It’s a really exciting development that will build on work done in Telehealth before,” she said.
“I think it’s going to revolutionise those patients’ lives, provide much better health outcomes, and means those doctors get on with the job of providing the care they want.”
WHAT IS TELEHEALTH
- MONITORING of patients with a chronic disease, or consulting with patients who would otherwise have to travel vast distances to see a clinician.
- SECOND OPINION and decision support for clinicians working in distant facilities.
- MEETINGS and administration within and between local health districts.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Caryn Metcalfe
Quelle/Source: Penrith Press, 02.02.2011
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