Industry Focus

INDUSTRY TREND solutions that rely on the connectivity and bandwidth offered by current internet service providers. Under a National Broadband Network (NBN) the quality of connections is expected to improve, thus assisting trust in the ability, and growth of, the sector. Under Julia Gillard, the federal government committed more than $20 million in grants towards nine telehealth 'pilot projects' to be delivered via the NBN through partner organisations. These include a $1.3 million grant to teleeye care and a $2.748 million CSIRO pilot to fund home monitoring of chronic disease in aged care. Today, according to data from the ACCRM's online provider directory, the largest non-commercial national database of telehealth-enabled doctors in Australia, the most popular telehealth solutions are Skype, Vidyo, GoToMeeting, Jabber and FaceTime. Similar to other e-businesses, telehealth faces valid issues around data security and identification verification. Among the solutions are secure cloudbased servers such as those used by videoconferencing and online appointment system Telehealth Networks, which was founded by regional general practitioner Dr Ramana Panda. Mike Rebecchi, an e-health expert at Australia's Academic and Research Network, believes that technological solutions need to be better managed if telehealth is to become a long-term transformative force for healthcare in Australia. He says investment in commercial infrastructure—such as devices currently being used in the US to deliver broadcast-quality video, in real-time, are vital. "We talk about the internet as a technology that we haven't really seen anything of what it can do yet and I think the same is true of telehealth," he says. Healthcare • Issue 3 9

• Cover