Telehealth
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The WA Country Health Service (WACHS) leads and promotes Telehealth as a key state-wide program area. Telehealth is the use of telecommunication technologies such as videoconferencing that bridges the distance for consumers and health workforce in their access to health services. Although Telehealth is more than videoconferencing, it is this medium that has been progressed the most for telepsychiatry, outpatient services, and education. Telehealth is a way in which services are delivered and aims to provide all consumers and health workforce, (especially those in rural and remote WA) with:
- Enhanced access to health services.
- Better education, training and support opportunities for local health care providers.
- Improved collaboration and communication between health care providers.
There are currently more than 240 videoconferencing units within health facilities across the state, enabling access from a significant proportion of the state. This network continues to be improved to address reliability, coverage and the integration of videoconferencing within day to day service delivery.
To date, clinical Telehealth services within WA are largely provided from the metropolitan area to rural sites. Progression to services within regions is now developing, with recognition that consumers within outer urban areas can also experience isolation and thus gain benefits similar to those experienced by rural and remote consumers.
Some of the outpatient services currently being provided include:
- Child and adolescent, adult, and older adult mental health services including clinical consultations, case reviews and clinical supervision.
- Other adult outpatient services including burns/plastics, neurology, gastroenterology and amputee review.
- Paediatric outpatient services in a range of specialty areas including orthopaedics, rehabilitation, burns/plastics and developmental paediatrics.
- Joint Replacement Assessment Clinic outpatient service, for the periodic review of patients following joint replacement surgery.
- Geriatric medicine service, for the delivery of geriatric assessments, case reviews and education.
Other areas where videoconferencing has been used with success includes:
- Virtual family visiting where a long stay patient dislocated from their hometown can videoconference with family & friends for emotional and social support.
Carers workshops where local carers are brought together to share and learn, while having a facilitator support them from another location.
Demonstration of successful linkages between
- health providers and their consumers located in their home or school environment for counseling, monitoring and review; and
- a private consultant’s rooms and rural patients for clinical advice preventing need for patient transfer, or PATS access for outpatient review.
These last two projects both require further work to enable them to become common practice.
The future direction of Telehealth is to improve access and efficiency of health services delivered across all environments (hospitals, community, home), based on population needs now and into the future.
Enquiries can be directed to vcprojectofficer@health.wa.gov.au or the Telehealth Manager on mobile 0438941423.
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