Telehealth - the Fundamentals of "Why"

Melissa Vernon, Chief Operating Officer - Strategy and Reform at WA Country Health Service

Melissa Vernon is the Chief Operating Officer – Strategy and Reform for the WA Country Health Service.  She has an extensive background in health-related leadership and executive positions in country WA with a mix of private, public and university academic and clinical roles.

Melissa is particularly focussed on:

·         Consumer and community driven health service reform

·         Addressing inequity of health service access and service improvement through a range of service reforms, particularly telehealth

·         Implementing an  effective chronic conditions and early years strategy for the WA Country Health Service with input from service partners

·         Leading Telehealth into the next phase as a significant enabler of improved service access.

In April 2017, Melissa successfully presented at the National Rural Health Conference in Cairns on “Emergency Telehealth Service - Innovative Model of Emergency Care for Rural Western Australia” and spoke about the successes of WACHS Emergency Telehealth Service, presented at the International Health informatics New Zealand conference in 2016 to over 1000 international delegates and recently featured as a Panel member on the discussion “Telehealth Q&A:  Are we there yet?” as part of the Broadband for the Bush Alliance Forum.

In recent years she has received the Health Consumer Council Award for Excellent Service to Consumers, the Director General of Health Award for Community Engagement in Health and the Australian Public Sector Medal.

A Clinician’s perspective - ‘What I need to make this work’

Jeremy Rawlins, Consultant Plastic Surgeon, Royal Perth Bentley Group & Fiona Stanley Fremantle Group

Jeremy is a Specialist Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon working at RPH and FSH with a major interest in plastic surgery trauma and skin oncology. Jeremy's trauma expertise includes burns, hand trauma, and complex lower limb injuries providing soft tissue cover with flaps and grafts. Jeremy's elective practice includes the management of melanoma (and non-melanoma skin cancer), excisional surgery, reconstruction and lymph node block dissections. With our trauma and elective plastic surgery service providing specialist care to patients across the state of Western Australia, we are reliant on Telehealth to provide safe and effective patient care. As part of my Consultant role in Plastic Surgery and Burns I provide weekly ‘Telehealth Clinics’ working alongside therapists and nurses in Perth and at Telehealth sites.  

State Wide Telehealth, the Technology Roadmap - 5 year plan

Alan Hamilton

Clinical Applications

Speaker TBC