Funding source: Brisbane North PHN
For this project, COH partnered with Brisbane North Primary Health Network (PHN) to engage around 70 residential aged care homes (RACHs) in the Brisbane North region, offering them technical support, tailored telehealth business processes advice, and telehealth training.
This included online sessions to assess telehealth readiness, site requirements, and processes needed to prepare for the telehealth training; onsite telehealth workshops (focussed on business processes and training); practical demonstrations of the Healthdirect videoconferencing platform; email support; and providing resources (training materials and user guides) to support ongoing upskilling of staff in each facility. COH researchers also carried out a pre- and post- evaluation of telehealth knowledge, skill development, and confidence in using telehealth with staff. Following this, work has been done to facilitate RACH connections with external health services.
A second phase of the project involved summarising how an exemplar virtual care service was running in an RACH in the Brisbane North region (case study), followed by co-developing a telehealth model of care for another RACH in the region, implementing it, and evaluating it.
Feedback on the project has been very positive from sites, as one GP stated:
"Thank you for all your assistance. As a result of your training, I have already been using Healthdirect video consult with the staff when on call. Have used this in 3 occasions thus far. I am using 91800 [Medicare item number] for these calls. We are really excited to have this capability at [our RACH]."
See below for related publications and news stories:
- Increasing the use of video telehealth in residential aged care homes: A mixed-methods evaluation of a practical telehealth training program to support telehealth implementation
- COH partners with BNPHN to deliver telehealth training for residential aged care homes
