Loddon Mallee Health Alliance

Loddon Mallee Health Alliance:
Telstra Case Study – Transcript showing supers

Alan Taylor, Chairman, Loddon Mallee Health Alliance
The Loddon Mallee Health Alliance is an alliance of 18 hospitals and 5 community health centres in the Loddon Mallee region and the aim of the alliance is to assist public health facilities in the provision of high quality information technology and connectivity.

Phil Coppin, ICT Manager, Bendigo Health
Transferring patients out of any regional hospital actually is a revenue loss to that hospital because the funding that would have been paid to them by the state government is actually paid to the metropolitan hospital who then delivers the care.
Our estimate is that it is probably within the vicinity of (Super on screen - “$2m pa funding retained by LMHA pays for ViTCCU”) 2 million dollars across the hospitals in our project, so by enabling these patients to stay in their local community, not only do we make sure they get better more quickly, but we also make sure that hospital can receive the funding resources that need to be put into the hospital to keep it operating.
The Loddon Mallee Virtual Trauma and Critical Care Unit originated about 4 years ago. It was a vision to deliver real time video conferencing services out of metropolitan areas into rural Australia.

Alan Taylor, Chairman, Loddon Mallee Health Alliance
This involves the provision of high speed broadband technology that enables a specialist trauma care doctor and health care workers in Metropolitan hospitals to have (Super on screen - “real-time access to patients in rural settings”) real-time access to patients in rural settings.

Phil Coppin, ICT Manager, Bendigo Health
Telstra were the natural to fit into the project because they had just rolled out their [Telstra] Next IP™ network. There was no one else in this area that had the reach that they have.

Dr. Barry Dixon, Intensive Care Consultant, St Vincent’s ICU, Melbourne
Without seeing the patient or being able to see their x-rays or their results, it’s very hard to make a judgement about what the best course of action is and the default at the moment is to bring the patient here to our unit from the country.
Having this resource enables us to see the patient, talk to family, see the x-rays, see the blood tests, talk to the doctors.

Dr Sol Zalstein, Director Emergency Medicine, Bendigo Hospital
Having the clinical information, the data, the ability to view things like ECGs and the actual monitor that the patient is connected to, and the data coming from that monitor; it’s as close as we can get to having the patient in our own department.

Jenny O’Brien, CIO St Vincent’s Melbourne
A couple of weeks ago we treated, via clinical video conferencing, a patient who was experiencing a heart attack. We were able to see in real-time that patient’s pain diminished by some suggestions on terms of treatment from St Vincent’s and actually see the relief on the face of the doctor at the rural location who was getting the support that he really needed.

Phil Coppin, ICT Manager, Bendigo Health
There is about one and a quarter to one and a half million dollars per annum spent in this region alone on the cost of taking people from these hospitals to Melbourne.
With this technology in place, we’ll be able to save (Super on screen - “reduced patient transfers saves $550,000+ pa”) at least $550,000 thousand dollars per annum, and that money is sufficient to allow these hospitals to keep this service running at zero cost.

Dr Sol Zalstein, Director Emergency Medicine, Bendigo Hospital
Telemedicine is definitely part of the future because I don’t foresee that there’ll be a great flood of specialists to the regional areas so the necessity for that level of support I think is going to be something that we really need to continue with.

Trish Oxley, Nurse Unit Manager, Emergency, Swan Hill Hospital
And it also provides for our hospital in the rural setting, (Super on screen - “helps LMHA recruit and retain staff”) an opportunity to recruit and retain staff because they do feel supported.

Phil Coppin, ICT Manager, Bendigo Health
The problems that we face here in Victoria are quite small compared to Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia, as this sort of technology that offers us benefits offers those states a major opportunity to enhance the way we deliver care in those remote sites.
(Super on screen - “helps LMHA recruit and retain staff”)