Telehealthcare

VeRSI believes that practical, socially-useful outcomes can flow from the application of eResearch to Telehealth problems. Many in our community are disadvantaged by healthcare provision under-servicing due to geographic distance from central urban teaching hospitals, where the majority of clinical specialists are located. Telehealthcare technology aims to ameliorate this problem by offering a simulation of a in-room clinician-patient interaction, just as if the patient was located in the same consulting room or hospital.

VeRSI has assisted in the promotion of awareness of practical telemedical application outcomes by co-hosting, with the Bio21 Institute and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, the symposium:Telehealth: Improving access to better health outcomes – current and future developments symposium on 12 November 2010

Before and after this symposium, VeRSI has partnered with a range of cross-disciplinary collaborators in the development of telemedical hardware and software. VeRSI is currently involved in one funded and three future telemedicine-based proof-of-concept projects.

Each project described below shares some common elements and confronts some common problems.

Full project deployment will require widespread high-speed broadband (fibre-optic) communication networks, such as the NBN, which is being progressively introduced across Australia.

We are working closely with the IBES (Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society) test bed which enables the trialling of equipment over varying broadband speeds and loads.

In general, our aims involve:

  • the use of evolving high-definition 2D and 3D stereoscopic still and moving image technology (with stereo audio) to simulate, as closely as possible, an in-room clinician-patient interaction
  • co-transmission of physiological data
  • maximising hardware and software interoperability
  • reducing, as much as technically- and cost- feasible, whole-infrastructure transmission latency to <200ms
  • trialing the technology in geographic areas of social need

Each project will require the sourcing and integration of existing and evolving HD 2D and 3D hardware, the design and fabrication of other hardware (including equipment housings and remote-control mounts) user-interface, scheduling and image recording, storage and forwarding software.

Current projects:

Past Events

Other resources: Terminology definitions

For further information about VeRSI's telehealthcare projects please contact Dr. Ann Borda.