Clinical and ICT Demonstration
Demonstrations of clinical use of telehealth and the exploration of associated workflow issues
Following the success of our 2011 Telehealth conference, HISA is proudly hosting the 2012 Australian Telehealth Conference. The Conference will be held from Wednesday 29 – Thursday 30 August, at the Rydges Melbourne.
The Australian E-Health Research Centre
These clinical demonstrations continue the CSIRO tradition of delivering innovations in healthcare delivery through telehealth.
Care Assessment Platform (CAP)
Looking to improve access and adherence to outpatient Cardiac Rehabilitation (CR) programs through telehealth home-based care model utilising smart phones and the internet. The CAP program was developed in partnership with the Queensland Government through the Australian E-Health Research Centre. CAP has been evaluated through a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) within the Primary and Community Health Services of Metro North Health Service District of Queensland Health. Results demonstrated that the CAP CR model was able to significantly improve the uptake rate by 20% and adherence by 20%. Patients reported that they were able to complete the program while returning to work, a key barrier in the low take up of traditional CR models. CAP also addresses the distance barrier if no local program is offered in their area.
Through a phone call to the Qld Health mentor, the demonstration will show how data captured during the week via the mobile phone application is used to inform the mentor as they provide clinical advice to the patient.
Remote-I
Remote-I is-a specialist eye care delivery platform to address the need for access to qualified specialists in rural areas, and reduce the need for patients to travel to capital cities. Remote-I contains an automated disease grading system that determines eye conditions such as diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma and age related macular degeneration by analysing retinal images and medical history. The platform enables and enhances remote case review by qualified specialists, and empowers and guides local care providers and nurses to screen and make timely referral decisions. Remote-I can easily be adapted to other chronic diseases due to its modular design, secure health record management system, and user-friendly interface.
Remote-I has been validated through a trial between Royal Perth Hospital and the Pilbara region, and CSIRO is now working with WA Health for wider use.
Smart Assisted Independent Living (SAIL) platform
The clinical demonstration session will finish with a short video of the Smart Assisted Independent Living (SAIL) platform, developed in collaboration with the Australian Centre for Broadband Innovation (ACBI). The SAIL platform uses non-invasive sensors to monitor activities of daily living. The data is then aggregated within a decision support platform to provide support for the senior citizen to actively and independently conduct their life in their own environment. SAIL will also be available for demonstration in the exhibition area.
Cisco
Cisco’s WebEx in partnership with cdmNet is providing telehealth services to help in the management of chronic disease. This demonstration will show how a telehealth session can be established for healthcare providers involved in a patient’s care using targeted notifications to invite participants to the session, access to the patient’s shared medical record and chronic disease plan as well as being able to share documents and images.
Background
cdmNet is an online service that assists healthcare providers to optimise treatments for chronically ill patients. To date over 12,000 patient’s GP management Plans have been electronically distributed amongst over 3,000 healthcare providers from the total of over 17,000 in the online directory.
To facilitate clinical consultation especially for rural and remote communities, cdmNet and Cisco partnered to provide an integrated telehealth experience where:
• All healthcare providers can be easily booked and invited to a telehealth session
• The cdmNet health record and GP management plan is shared
• Medicare requirements documented:
o All telehealth session bookings and invitations are recorded
o Clinical progress notes date and time stamped
• Video and voice enhance the consultation
• Other documents and images can be shared
cdmNet provides an easy way for practitioners to satisfy the Medicare requirements for telehealth, which require documentation of clinical notes at the time of the telehealth conference. cdmNet telehealth records the telehealth appointment time and the health providers invited to the session. It date and time stamps the note, providing an audit trail of telehealth activity. For Medicare telehealth billing the teleconference includes the patient, a GP or nurse and a specialist. In addition, this telehealth facility supports collaborative care amongst all healthcare providers involved in the patient’s care.
Telehealth Enabled - a division of Evidence Technology
Making Telehealth practical and accessible to all Australians
This non conventional demonstration is designed to make us all think. We have all seen the ‘couch potato’ views of practitioners and patients looking and speaking to one another through the wonderful windows that video conference and telehealth provides. Working with Evidence Technology, the Royal Flying Doctor Services (RFDS) is pushing the frontier of high quality emergency health support in ways that may surprise and challenge convention and traditional cost models.
The Royal Flying Doctor Services is a recognised innovator and adopter of practical technologies that make a real difference to the quality of life and wellbeing of rural and regional Australians. The statistics are staggering. Over 1000 dedicated staff, 61 aircraft, 75,000 landings and flying a distance equivalent to three trips to the moon per annum (no moon landings just yet!). The RFDS provides more than 275,000 patient contacts and in excess of 90,000 telehealth sessions per annum.
Evidence Technology has been working with RFDS across Australia to assist, provide advice and support video conferencing technology and related business process transformations. Applying technology in ways that are practical, reliable and beneficial is central to the RFDS and Evidence Technology partnership philosophy.
To be effective, solutions must be as easy to use as a telephone or pair of scissors.
Evidence Technology launched Telehealth Enabled in early 2011 to provide a secure, high quality and cost effective telehealth service for metropolitan and regional Australians. It believes that the bundling of devices, services and systems into an integrated solution makes limited sense. Using a ‘loose coupling’ approach Evidence Technology will show you how an emergency response to a life threatening situation may be enhanced using the device you have in your own pocket and a telehealth investment of about $5.
We also thank AAPT and Apple for their support for this demonstration.
