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Fresh Approach to Telemedicine

Doctors in the South Island will pioneer a fresh approach to telemedicine after deciding to abandon a hi-tech telepresence system set up on the West Coast that became a flagbearer for ultrafast broadband.

In what Michael Sullivan, telehealth clinical leader for West Coast and Canterbury district health boards, said would be the biggest implementation of telemedicine to date, nurses and GPs on the West Coast will instead be provided with a low-cost system that will let them consult other GPs and specialists in the South Island via video from their desktops.

There was only one GP in the whole of South Westland, who saw patients in Hari Hari, Whataroa, Franz Josef, Fox Glacier and Haast, Dr Sullivan said. "That's an enormous area. He might be doing a clinic in Hari Hari and 300 kilometres away there's a nurse down in Haast who's got a patient she'd urgently like the doctor to see. They often have to consult over the phone."

Health practices at those five sites would be kitted out with 22-inch high-definition video conference units that doubled as computer screens. "The nurses there will be able to dial into the system and talk to Greymouth or the GP or get a palliative care opinion or a cancer opinion from Christchurch."

Buller, which already had one videoconferencing site, would get at least one more, and existing sites in Reefton and Hokitika would be upgraded.

West Coast DHB installed Cisco telepresence suites worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in Grey Base Hospital and Westport in late 2008 so clinicians could consult with patients in Westport, but Dr Sullivan said that system was used very little in the first year and would no longer be needed.