Telemedicine system wins QH Minister Award

An innovative telemedicine trial which improves the care for sick infants has won the Health Minister’s ‘Best Innovation’ award and the award for the category of 'Better Clinical Practice: better patient outcomes' ‘at the 2011 Queensland Health Healthcare Improvement Awards.

Using real-time audiovisual links between referring hospitals and the RBWH in Brisbane, telemedicine allow specialists to remotely assess an infant’s condition, colour, breathing and also examine medical images in real time. During telemedicine consultations, clinicians at the referring hospitals and the RBWH also communicate with each other by video conference. Without telemedicine, doctors must make decisions by telephone and rely on verbal descriptions of the infant and their x-rays. 

The project was developed as a research partnership between neonatologist Dr Tim Donovan at the RBWH and Dr Nigel Armfield, research fellow at the Centre for Online Health at the University of Queensland. The telemedicine program has been trialled with the Hervey Bay, Nambour, Caboolture and Redcliffe Hospitals to determine whether telemedicine was a viable approach to overcome the health care access impediments of distance and time.

The RBWH completes more than 169 neonatal retrievals each year, travelling about 66,500 km by plane, helicopter and road, with round trips ranging from 11 to 1,500 kilometres. It can take many hours to reach a sick baby.

The trial demonstrated that telemedicine is a feasible, effective and economical way to provide early diagnosis and management advice for sick infants at a distance. Further, it allows some infant retrievals to be avoided allowing infants to be managed at hospitals closer to home and their family. The timely availability of visual information through telemedicine provides a significant improvement on telephone assessment.

In the 12 month trial period, five infant retrievals were avoided and management changes were made in 14 percent of cases. The trial also showed that telemedicine does not need to expensive – with the system breaking even at a retrieval avoidance rate of only 5%. Importantly, telemedicine can provide reassurance for clinicians caring for infants some distance from a specialist nursery.

Media highlights

For babies and tight budgets, long-distance diagnosis delivers, The Australian

Award winning telemedicine trial for sick infants, UQ News Online

Minister awards telemedicine trial for sick infants, Queensland Government

Technology helps rural sick kids, Fraser Coast Chronicle

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