The following report prompted me to wonder just where all the remote telemedicine project and pilots had gone – it somehow seems we hear very little about it these days in Australia.
Aberdeen A+E pilots video booths
31 Jan 2008
Emergency patients in North-East Scotland can now remotely consult with a doctor through video conferencing technology.
The deveopment comes as part of a new collaboration between Cisco and the Scottish Centre for Telehealth.
The new HealthPresence booth enables patients to remotely consult with a doctor, particularly useful should they live in a remote area, without close proximity to an A+E department.
Aberdeen Royal Infirmary hospital has been running the trial since December, with the aim of seeing 300 accident and emergency patients through video conferencing.
Sitting in front of a monitor with a webcam, patients are able to have a remote consultation with a doctor via the video-teleconferencing technology.
Patients can then use a range of medical devices, including blood pressure cuffs, glucose monitors, audioscopes and stethoscopes, which upload data directly into an electronic medical record. The patients using the booths are assisted by qualified first aid professionals to help them correctly use the devices.
Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group’s global healthcare solutions director, Nick Augustinos, told EHI: “The aim of these booths is to help patients in rural areas where treatment resources are scarce, to have somewhere to go, which is an environment very similar to what they see when they visit a GP, and is able to give them an accurate diagnosis without them having to go miles away.”
The Scottish Centre for Telehealth chose the Royal Aberdeen Infirmary’s accident and emergency department, as the 877 bed hospital serves the whole of North-East Scotland, including remote areas on the coastline.
Gordon Peterkin, director of the Scottish Centre for Telehealth, told EHI: “Scotland has already been an active player in the telehealth area and we wanted to extend this for the benefit of patients. We have had an idea of an interactive booth since 2006, where we displayed a hypothetical situation to Princess Anne at our conference, looking at providing the right treatment, for the right patient at the right time.
Continue reading the article here:
http://www.ehealtheurope.net/news/3429/aberdeen_a+e_pilots_video_booths
The article also provides a link to the trial managers
Scottish Centre for Telehealth
This report got me thinking and wondering just where we are up to in Australia – especially as telemedicine is given as one of the reasons for Mr Rudd’s planned broadband rollout.
It is fascinating that if you Google “telemedicine Australia reports” you get the following first three hits
Robots in Australian Childrens' Hospitals Aid Telemedicine
The University of Queensland's Center for Online Health in Australia has developed robots that connect patients, physicians and other specialists through video teleconferencing, the Brisbane Courier Mail reports.
http://www.dhs.vic.gov.au/ahs/archive/telemed/index.htm
An Abridged Version of a Report for the Department of Human Services (State of Victoria)
Telemedicine
An International, Comparative Analysis of Policy, Regulatory and Medico-legal Obstacles and Solutions
Report prepared by Robert Milstein, Consultant, January 1999
And this
http://www.jma.com.au/unevendiffusion.htm
The Uneven Diffusion of Telemedicine Services In Australia
Paper presented at TeleMed 98, the sixth International Conference on Telemedicine and Telecare, Royal Society of Medicine, London, UK, 25-26 November 1998
John Mitchell & Associates, Sydney, New South Wales
If you Google “telehealth Australia reports” you get the following familiar site!
http://aushealthit.blogspot.com/2007/11/value-of-provider-to-provider.html
So we seem to have a range of reports from last century and very little apparently happening in Australia except possibly in Queensland at the Centre for Online Health.
Is it that all this stuff is so old hat and proven no one even mentions it these days or have all those pilots of years back run out of money and are now defunct?
I would love to hear from those who know. The silence seems a little ominous to me.
David.
2 comments:
I think the telmental health project is a live and ongoing in Southern NSW
There are also a few business driven things rather than pilots such as mobile ultrastenographers travelling the country roads and beaming back the images to base. Even some football squads recently visiting Australia have that capacity.
I've been working on a trial to deliver medication management by videophone in Adelaide, with the Royal District Nursing Service of SA for the past 6 months. See this You Tube link for a story about it that was on ABC TV news in December.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcreXDyeCvc
We are also installing videophone links between general practices and aged care facilities in Adelaide, in collaboration with Adelaide Western General Practice Network. What we are finding is that there are many useful applications of telehealth in urban as well as rural areas.
Post a Comment