South Australia Digital Telehealth Network brings access to wide range of care for state's country area patients

The South Australia Digital Telehealth Network brought patients inthe state's country areas of the state face-to-face health services conveniently, reducing time and travel requirements. The network enabled emergency diagnosis and viewing patient data through video conferencing with health professionals.

The South Australia Digital Telehealth Network provides the technology for clinicians and consumers to communicate face-to-face from different locations via video and other telecommunication.

Patients in remote and country areas of the state were able to receive health services conveniently, reducing time and travel requirements. The South Australia Digital Telehealth Network greatly improved patient access to a range of clinical services not offered in their locality. Country patients had better access to metro-based specialist services from their local hospital or health centre, with the list of specialties available increasing.

The digital telehealth network was launched in 2012, initially with 90 video units across most public country hospitals. The network significantly expanded, with more than 400 video conferencing units in metropolitan and country health sites by 2023. 

The network was delivering healthcare services across the South Australian government SA Health department, including: nental health (child and adolescent), medical oncology, radiation oncology, cariology, burns support, renal services, rehabilitation, allied health, haematology, neurology, pain assessment, spinal assessment, emergency retrieval, vascular surgery, palliative care, prison health and after-hours general-practice doctor support for emergency departments.

In 2019, the digital telehealth hetwork was used for more than 12,000 clinical consumer encounters with more than 24,000 video conferences, including clinical, operational, training and administrative communication.

Similar to consulting face-to-face with a health professional, private or sensitive treatment issues could be discussed during a video conference. Privacy and confidentially were maintained at all times. Additional staff weren’t permitted in consultation rooms without patient consent, and consultations weren’t recorded. Specialist telehealth consultations could be bulkbilled to Medicare if the patient was from an eligible remote area (RA 2 to 5) and more than 15 kilometres from the nearest health provider.  

Telehealth allowed GPs and other health professionals to conveniently provide services and patient consultations via video conferencing. Rural GPs could use the South Australia Digital Telehealth Network locally from a country location when consulting with a public health specialist to support care delivery to public health consumers. Alternatively, rural GPs could a privately make internet connection and a standards-based software application to link to the digital telehealth network.

Some other uses of the digital telehealth network by SA Health included:
• after-hours clinical support to country health services and GPs in high demand,
• state-wide clinical collaboration in metropolitan, health sites, local and regional local health networks
• training and educating clinical staff.