Enhancement of Telehealth in Western Australia
Funding recipient
Western Australia Country Health Service
Project partners
West Australian State Government
Project achievements
The West Australian Country Health Service (WACHS) is the lead agency for the statewide Telehealth program in the Department of Health (DoH). The project built onto and expanded the DoH IP network infrastructure, enabling improved health service delivery for regional, rural and remote communities across the state. The project delivered improved picture and sound quality to existing Telehealth services and will also be interoperable with other broadband modes of communication including electronic medical records, pathology results and radiology images.
The project has enabled the remote provision of Aboriginal medical services that facilitate Aboriginal health workers support of their patients; remote assessment of patients on remand and in prison via telehealth virtual clinics; mental health interviews carried out via videoconferencing; Royal Flying Doctor Service and other emergency services remotely linking with metropolitan emergency departments; and general practitioners remotely linking with education programs and participating in case conferencing and discharge planning.
Through Local Area Networks (LAN) and Wide Area Networks (WAN) upgrades, WACHS now has a robust and standardised LAN and WAN across rural and remote areas which can support not only increased videoconferencing services but also integration of future IT applications such as i-Pharmacy, PACS, Patient Information System and Oracle. Seventy five sites in the WAN were upgraded and now provide a minimum of 2 Mbps Government Wideband Internet Protocol (GWIP). Eighteen of these sites previously had no WAN service at all. The LAN was upgraded at 105 sites which has provided enhanced picture and video quality, enabled Quality of Service for video traffic and will support the use of Telehealth technologies.
Rural and regional areas have benefitted through the LAN and WAN upgrade with videoconferencing services enabled within the local nursing post or community health centre.
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Funding | |
|---|---|
| Australian Government: | $ 3 052 702 |
| Other contributions (includes cash & in-kind): | $ 3 970 000 |
| Total: | $ 7 022 702 (excluding GST) |
