technology
Networking stroke care
Victorian Stroke Telemedicine consultation. Image: The Florey Institute of Neuroscience & Mental Health
A 24 / 7 telemedicine program in rural Victoria has been successful in increasing regional patient access to high quality stroke treatment.
Christopher Bladin interviewed by Dallas Bastian
The experts behind a Victorian telemedicine program that delivers acute stroke care to regional Victoria want the intervention to go national.
Professor Christopher Bladin, program lead of the Victorian Stroke Telemedicine( VST) project at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience & Mental Health, discussed the effectiveness of the program and the lessons learned following its rollout during his presentation at the Digital Health Summit in Melbourne.
VST is active in 16 major regional and rural hospitals across the state. It allows clinicians to access a virtual system linking the hospitals to a network of Melbourne-based neurologists who can provide treatment advice about patients with acute stroke symptoms.
The 24-hour-a-day service is underpinned by audio-visual communication between neurologists, patients and clinicians and real-time access to brain imaging.
It aims to reduce diagnostic delays and improve access to effective acute stroke treatments.
Aged Care Insite speaks with Bladin following his presentation at the conference to find out what staff using the system work through and what he attributes its success to.
ACI: When first setting up this service, you looked to the TEMPiS Network from Germany that has been in operation since 2002 and operates over about 18 hospitals. What are some of the key elements of that program that you wanted to replicate in Australia? CB: We had the opportunity to look at the TEMPiS Network and see what their processes were and to look at the equipment that they were using.
That was extremely educational for us, because it gave us some very good ideas as to how we should structure our Victorian Stroke Telemedicine program.
When we set up the VST program, we looked at the company that they were using, the M. I. Tech telemedicine company, and we invited them out to Australia to set up their equipment so we could test it. We also tested other equipment from the US and then finally a large committee made a decision as to which was the best technology platform to adopt to deliver VST, and we selected the same company that the German Bavarian TEMPiS Network was using.
We also looked at how they did their telemedicine calls and looked at the volume of calls that they were having which was certainly something that we were aspiring to. That process was extremely educational for us and we’ ve maintained close contact with them. We are certainly in the process of sharing our data with them as well. It has been a very fruitful collaboration.
36 agedcareinsite. com. au