Philanthropy and donations

The delivery of care by telehealth usually involves support by telephone, videoconference or by remote patient monitoring. It was once thought that telehealth was designed only for people living in very remote areas, but in fact telehealth can help everybody. During the pandemic, telehealth became a household name as general practitioners moved many of their services to include virtual care. Led by Professor Anthony Smith, the Centre for Online Health (COH) is best known for its practical research and service programs which involve:

1. Engagement with community, patients, and service providers;
2. Identification of health priorities and preferences; and
3. Creation of innovative ways to make services more easily accessible and sustainable.

Our work to date has demonstrated some remarkable benefits including earlier detection of chronic disease, more convenient access to healthcare, new models of care which are more tailored to patient needs, and direct savings to families due to reduced travel away from home.

The problem: One in five Australians have more than one chronic health condition (e.g., diabetes, asthma, back pain, heart disease, etc.). The healthcare system is failing to give people the care they need because it is designed to treat one condition at a time. And costs are growing, with the average healthcare spend per capita increasing by 6.6% in 2020-21. One in eight Australians with multiple chronic conditions have experienced issues because the communication between their healthcare professionals is poor. Previous research identified that care that not only asks for but takes into account people’s opinions, is clearly communicated between health professionals and takes advantage of existing technologies can lead to better outcomes and quality of life for people with multiple health conditions.

The solution: Using a consumer-led approach, we want to integrate safe and effective health technologies (e.g., mobile apps, telehealth, etc) to provide consistent and personalised support for people to self-manage their own conditions. Existing technologies (e.g., clinical dashboards, eConsults) will also be used to facilitate the communication and integration of the work done by multiple healthcare professionals, increasing the capacity of health teams to care for people with chronic conditions. This work will be conducted at The University of Queensland Centre for Online Health, globally recognised with more than 20 years

Nearly 20% of all children starting school in Australia have a speech, language, or communication impairment. Without specific intervention, children who are affected are much more likely to underperform academically and are at a much greater risk of developing behavioural and emotional problems. A broad range of speech and language conditions are offered to children in schools around the country, however access to these specialist services remains very restricted, especially for people living in regional and remote communities. Our research program is designed to improve access to a range of “virtual” allied health services.

Trust is intimately linked with the uncertainty of the future. Digital health (i.e. technology used to collect, store, communicate and manage health care) has been in use for over 10 years but only now are we experiencing the disruption to the way we usually receive care. This has unveiled a multitude of issues, namely:

• Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 60% of health professionals had never used digital health.
• Health service providers were the top source of databreaches in Australia in 2022.
• Recent estimates suggest 9 in 10 Australians do not trust digital health in some way.

Our group have been working closely with consumers for the last 3 years and we know that their trust varies amongst different virtual care modalities, being significantly impacted by positive experiences. Trust is also a predictor of digital health use, adoption, usefulness and acceptance.

It is not surprising that trust will be one of the biggest threats to delivering effective, safe, and sustainable digital health care over the next 10 years.

We strongly believe that failure to address these gaps will result in a lost opportunity in our history, where digital health models of care will be of little value to people if they cannot trust them, or if they lack the skills to effectively engage with them. The time to address this is now to ensure an equitable, sustainable, flexible, and efficient healthcare system making the most of the benefits that digital health can provide.