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[Music plays]
(Prof Branko Celler) The population is ageing.
Those aged over 65 will double
and those aged over 85 will quadruple in the next 20-years.
Chronic disease at present consumes
over 70 per cent of the total healthcare budget
and is growing so rapidly that it could consume
all of the States budgets within 20-years.
Telehealth is one of the best ways of trying to reduce
hospitalisation, therefore, hospital costs.
The Telehealth system is basically a
monitoring system with quite a large screen
to help guide the patient through the different procedures.
Typically, the process takes 20-minutes.
Patients take their blood pressure,
they record their blood oxygen,
their blood glucose,
their electrocardiogram, their body temperature,
their body weight and they answer a number of clinical questionnaires.
This data is then gathered and sent off, almost immediately,
to a remote website to become visible to the care team.
The data is collected in real-time and can be viewed almost immediately,
particularly for patients connected to a broadband system.
(Lay Yean Woo) I monitor my clients once a day
and looking at reviewing all the data entries
that have been transmitted to me.
It is quite straightforward and it is a very easy process.
I can see the information in real-time,
I can monitor them, following up with a phone call
if there’s any issues with their health.
[Lay Yean Woo talking to patient]
Also with the time that has been freed up
for me I can look at
more new clients being referred to me.
(Prof Branko Celler) The trial targets chronically ill patients
that have complex chronic conditions
that tend to take them to hospital multiple times a year.
They begin to self-manage and this is really important,
because this has been demonstrated to be very effective
in helping to keep patients out of hospital.
So the patients are a key player
in the total management of their chronic condition.
(Bill) I jumped on it straightaway,
when Lay came to me and said would we like to do it?
And there was no hesitation.
Before she was going to the doctors
two or three times a week
and now she only goes once every three weeks.
And with the help of this monitor
I don’t get so scared anymore.
Before I was wondering if it’s safe to leave the house,
because many times I’ve come home and she’s
been laying on the floor, or she’s injured herself.
And it takes a lot of pressure off your GP.
This way you don’t need to go down there if it’s
only something minor.
(Prof Branko Celler) If Telehealth is to be scaled up nationally
we need to have a way of being able to identify
changes in patient health status on a daily basis.
CSIRO’s developing
some very interesting new tools to facilitate this,
and to allow nurses to understand
the patients’ condition on a day by day basis.
(Bill) I can’t thank her enough
for what she’s done for Janice and what the machine has done.
[Music plays]