The Central Australia Health Service is once again working closely with the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) to improve Telehealth service delivery in remote Australia.
Representatives from ADHA, headed by the Chief Executive Officer Mr Tim Kelsey, are in Central Australia this week to meet with relevant health professionals and agencies to develop strategies that will see Telehealth opening up further specialties in the region and enhance IT systems to incorporate TeleHealth appointments.
“The National Telehealth Connection Service has recently been deployed in the Northern Territory to expand the footprint for health service delivery, enabling connections with non-government agencies, such as Aboriginal Medical Services, and interstate tertiary hospitals, such as Royal Adelaide Hospital,” said Mr Stephen Moo, Chief Information Officer for the Department of Health.
The benefits of the National Telehealth Connection Service are to promote clinical collaboration across jurisdictional boundaries for health service providers, improve access to health services, better manage costs and optimise resources, increase information exchange within and between jurisdictions and establish a Telehealth scheduling system.
“This collaboration between the Australian Digital Health Agency and the Northern Territory Government will build on the success of the earlier project,” he said.
In December 2009 the Northern Territory was successful in a bid for the Digital Regions Initiative for implementing Telehealth across regional and remote Northern Territory.
“This laid the foundation for Telehealth NT and as a result there are now more than 50 Telehealth enabled centres in major cities and towns, regional areas and remote locations,” Mr Moo said.
The focus of this visit will be to encourage understanding of the context of providing health services within a challenging environment and to share emerging themes from recent ADHA national consultations.
“This can only be of benefit to people living in the Northern Territory, most particularly those people in remote communities who rely on Telehealth for treatment of chronic disease so they can live on their own country,” Mr Moo said.
“Telehealth has already delivered savings to government of more than $1.1 million and the number of regional and remote Territorians being seen by a doctor using TeleHealth has risen from approximately 200 per year to more than 1000 per year,” he said.
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