Waikato Hospital patients may soon be able to receive remote telemedicine treatment at their local general practitioner without having to visit their hospital thanks in part to Digital Equipment Corporation.
The 14-month trial, the first of its type in New Zealand, will be run by the hospital's Skin Clinic.
The trial which begins this month will try to determine the cost-effectiveness of providing remote telemedicine services between GP's and the hospital for dermatology patients in Rotorua and Taupo.
As part of the trial DIGITAL has provided two PC 3100's, according to Alistair Melhuish, DIGITAL's Health Team Leader.
"DIGITAL has already established a solid track record as an IT solutions provider to the NZ Healthcare sector."
"Our Healthcare customers include Crown Health Enterprises from Northland, Auckland and Wellington, as well as Waikato Hospital itself, so it was a natural progression for DIGITAL to be involved in this trial," he says.
The two Pentium 166 PC's with MMX and 32 Mb of memory will be used in conjunction with a (VTEL) PC Desktop videoconferencing system and digital cameras, for both interactive use and also the forwarding and storage of images. Data pertaining to the trial will be processed on the PCs using Microsoft ACCESS.
The clinical trial will randomly choose up to 400 patients between conventional visits to the Waikato Hospital Skin Clinic and Telemedicine appointments. Telemedicine patients will be 'seen' by the Dermatologist over an ISDN video link between the hospital and their GP's medical centre, with the GP participating in the consultation.
The trial has been approved by the Ministry of Health as one of the projects in the Health Information Initiatives Programme. Other sponsors include Health Waikato and the New Zealand Health Informatics Foundation, says the Foundation's Vice Chairperson, Patricia Kerr.
"The Foundation fosters the effective use of information technology applications in the health sector and includes the development of standards and the initiation of educational and research projects."
"We are running the trial in conjunction with the Institute of Telemedicine and Telecare at Queens University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Other participants are based in England and Ireland," says Kerr.
Dr Amanda Oakley, Specialist Dermatologist at Waikato Hospital is the New Zealand Project Director for the trial. Dr Oakley has been involved with three previous phases of the project, which studied diagnostic accuracy using videoconferencing technology.
"In preceding phases, teledermatology consultations have proven effective for patients seen at Taumarunui Hospital, but the referring GP's were not involved," says Kerr.
"This study provides an excellent opportunity for doctors to learn how to better manage their patients with skin diseases and long-term, we believe the level of patient care should improve," she says.
The trial is due to be completed in March 1999.
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Note to Editors: DIGITAL, the DIGITAL logo and AlphaServer are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, licensed exclusively through X/Open Company, Ltd. NT and Windows NT are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are property of their respective companies.
20 February 1998
