THE board of the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) South Eastern Section meets in its traditional heartland at Broken Hill where most of its services and its corporate headquarters are based.
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It will meet amid concerns that overstretched communications networks will shortly no longer be able to meet its needs and the national broadband network (NBN) may not deliver the fast, reliable broadband system the Service needs.
“Due to the remote areas in which we operate, the Flying Doctor has always been innovative and embraced new technology,” said Mrs Joan Treweeke, , President RFDS SE Section.
“It started with Morse code and radio and continues to the present day where our telehealth service handles almost 5,000 doctor- patient consultations each year and is predicted to grow.”
“Four years ago, we centralised the patient records database to one location and provided clinicians with remote access to them via USB Wireless Broadband and then Citrix. Increasingly, X-rays and scans are being provided electronically too. High definition video pictures could greatly aid remote doctor consultations, education and training.”
“However, due to the influx of iPads, iPhones and other smart phones which use NextG wireless connections, the bandwidth available is no longer adequate for us to access those records or use these new tools.”
Mrs Treweeke said that when the Service first moved from paper to electronic records, it saved each doctor approximately 60 minutes per day. They now lose approximately 30 minutes productivity a day at remote clinics. Time is precious at the 18 remote clinics service by south Eastern section because the RFDS clinics only visits once a month.
She fears the increasing demand on voice services will only diminish the capacity for data transmission further and while the RFDS welcomes the NBN, already disadvantaged communities could fall even further behind unless its planned roll out is revised.
“The NBN will pass through Wilcannia, a regular clinic location, which accounts for approximately 25 per cent of our current workload, however no node is currently planned for Wilcannia. In fact, only one is proposed for the whole of the 640,000 square kilometres that RFDS South Eastern Section covers,” said Mrs Treweeke.
“A node at Wilcannia, in addition to the one for Broken Hill, would significantly improve broadband capacity in the region, allowing us to implement a range of initiatives that would improve and enhance health services and health outcomes.”
“The RFDS SE provides regular general practice and nursing clinics in 18 isolated communities in far west NSW, south west Queensland and north east South Australia. In order to provide co-ordinated, and safe, medical care at these clinics, our doctors and other clinical staff need to be able to access our centralised medical records via access to fast, reliable broad band.”
The Federal Government is awaiting the findings of a Parliamentary review before committing to changes to improve the system.
