The 2021 Successes and Failures in Telehealth conference (SFT-21) was held last week – virtually engaging 147 delegates from all around Australia and overseas, including Japan, China and South Africa. The three day conference program delivered workshops on research methods (biostats) in telehealth and practical steps in setting up your telehealth service; and over 65 oral and poster presentations. Topics included palliative care, allied health services, mental health, telerehabilitation, sustainability and planning, remote monitoring and telehealth adoption strategies. On the first day, an industry panel session was held with key representatives from UQ, Queensland Health, Pexip, Visionflex and MyEmergencyDr. Industry panellists opened the main conference program with a frank conversation about making telehealth BAU (business as usual), and words of wisdom focussing on the promising future of telehealth. What was clear during SFT-21 was the vast amount of telehealth experience around the country, the effort around change management, and the genuine desire to redesign and plan more patient-centric services. Telehealth is here to stay.
A selection of short papers from SFT-21 have been published in the Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare. These are available for download from: https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/jtta/27/10
The presentations were all delivered online with excellent background support provided by Iceberg Events and Onevision. Dates for SFT-22 have been announced. Mark these in your diaries, and get ready for early-bird registration deals:
SFT- 22 will be held in Brisbane from the 9-11 November 2022.
The ATHS and the Centre for Online Health would like to thank the following sponsors and supporters for their involvement in SFT-21:
- Pexip (Gold Sponsor)
- Visionflex
- MyEmergencyDr,
- Telstra Health
- Queensland Health
- The University of Queensland
- Coviu (supporter).
Congratulations to the following recipients for SFT-21 best paper and poster awards:
BEST PAPER AWARDS
Partnerships in Aged-Care Emergency Services Using Interactive Telehealth
Carla Sunner
Sustaining Telehealth Services Beyond Rapid Response to COVID-19: Learning from patient and allied health staff experiences at a major tertiary hospital
Clare Burns, Michelle Cottrell, Amber Jones, Adrienne Young, Ann Rahmann, Sonia Sam, Mark Cruickshank, Kelsey Pateman
Quantifying the Societal Benefits from Telehealth
Liam Caffery, Centaine Snoswell, Matt Page, Paul Scuffham, Anthony Smith
From Proof of Concept to Service Sustainability: Evaluation of admitted stroke telerehabilitation in country Western Australia
Ruth Warr, Kate Hawkings, Kien Chan, Lindsay Adams
Virtual Care Implementation in Palliative Care for Those in Rural and Regional Areas
Shane Delves, Catherine Eggett
BEST POSTER AWARDS
What do Patients Value in an Outpatient Video Consultation? A Discrete Choice Experiment Determining Preferences and Willingness-to-pay
Centaine Snoswell, Anthony Smith, Matthew Page, Liam Caffery
High Versus Low Adoption and Sustained Use of Telehealth Among Hospital Based Allied Health Services: A multi-method study
Emma Thomas, Elizabeth Ward, Renee Cook, Julie-Anne Ross, Carina Hartley, Clare Webb, Michael Harris, Liam Caffery
