Practical aspects of telehealth: establishing telehealth in an institution

TLDR

Barriers to telehealth implementation in rural areas include workforce, funding, infrastructure deficits and entrenched professional mindsets, underscoring the need for adequate resourcing. The paper aims to describe the development of a large teleoncology network to deliver specialist services to rural and remote patients closer to home. The authors established a teleoncology network spanning northern Queensland, detailing its design and deployment across a vast geographic area. Over 5–6 years, adequate resourcing and continuous quality improvement strengthened the network, enabling patients to receive care closer to home while improving workforce, service capabilities, and infrastructure at a remote hospital 900 km from its tertiary centre.

Abstract

Abstract The fifth in a series of papers on practical aspects of telehealth, this paper discusses telehealth models that can facilitate the provision of specialist services to rural and remote patients closer to home. Some of the barriers to successful implementation of these models relates to workforce, funding and infrastructure at rural sites, as well as the traditional mindset of healthcare professionals. Therefore, the rural sector needs to be adequately resourced for telehealth models to be substantive and successful. This paper describes the development of a large teleoncology network over a vast geographical area in N orth Q ueensland. Adequate resourcing for the rural sites and undertaking quality improvement activities has continually enhanced the model over a 5‐ to 6‐year period. The benefits of this model of care are twofold: (i) patients received their care closer to home and (ii) the workforce, service capabilities and infrastructure for the hospital in M t I sa (a rural town 900 km away from its tertiary centre) has improved.