International win for nurse-led telehealth service
RDNS has picked up an innovation award at the Asia Pacific Eldercare Innovation Awards 2013 for its nurse-led telehealth project.
Mr Stelvio Vido, Executive general manager of RDNS (left) and Singapore’s Senior Minister of State, Chan Chun Sing (middle).
The Royal District Nursing Service telehealth project, which allows a nurse to make a ‘virtual visit’ to a patient at home, has won the Outstanding ICT Innovation award at the Asia Pacific Eldercare Innovation Awards 2013, announced in Singapore this week.
The Healthy, Happy and at Home project has been tested over the past 24 months in Australia with over 50 clients to support older people to remain at home for longer and to avoid unnecessary hospitalisations.
Each client has a special monitor at home with an inbuilt camera, allowing nurses at the RDNS call centre to conduct two-way video calls to observe the client taking their medications or to take remote measurements through peripheral medical devices.
At the international forum, the RDNS also held its first public demonstration in Asia of the nurse-led project with Singapore’s Senior Minister of State, Mr Chan Chun Sing.
Located 6000 kilometres away at the RDNS call centre in Melbourne, nurse Amanda Murray demonstrated live the key features of a virtual consultation with the Minister by hypothetically taking his blood pressure and monitoring his ‘medication’ – in this case lollies.
RDNS Chief Executive, Adjunct Professor Stephen Muggleton, said the project was an innovative example of how technology can provide better in-home support for older people.
“The success of this project is opening up a range of other exciting solutions that build on the capacity of our nurse-led call centre,” said Prof Muggleton.
The innovation award was announced on the opening day of the 4th Ageing Asia Investment Forum where 300 international delegates from business, government and community sectors are gathering to discuss the challenges of ageing populations in the Asian region.
The project was supported by the Victorian government’s Broadband Enabled Innovation Program (BEIP). Other project partners include Telstra, Healthe Tech and La Trobe University.
What a wonderful and thoughtful innovation.Congratulations!