Research, innovation in rural and remote Aust health services

The keynote address at the 4th Rural and Remote Health Scientific Symposium (4RRHSS, Canberra, 2-3 September) will be delivered by David Hansen, CEO of the Australian e-Health Research Centre (AEHRC).

A highlight of the Symposium will be the opportunity for rural and remote researchers, health service providers and consumers to develop an even stronger relationship with agencies like the ABS, AIHW, NHPA and AHPRA.

David Hansen leads the research programs of the AEHRC, a joint venture between CSIRO and the Queensland Government. The AEHRC is the largest national research facility applying information and communication technologies (ICT) to improving health services and clinical treatment for Australians.

CSIRO rural and remote Australia research
 
At the 4RRHSS Dr Hansen will give examples of CSIRO research in rural and remote Australia and how the information gathered can be used to inform government policy and funding models. An important aspect of the work is to extract meaning from the wide range of home and health service data collected as part of service delivery.

Examples will include a large multi-centre, multi-state telehealth trial in various rural and urban settings.  A home-monitoring care model was integrated with the existing structure and flow of services in the different settings to gather evidence that would inform national scale-up of telehealth services to provide an alternative and cost-effective service for the management of chronic disease.

Other examples will include the use of mobile phones, tablets and sensor networks to support the delivery of health services in the community. These health services range from post heart attack cardiac rehabilitation, smart home technology to enable older Australians to live safely in their homes, and tele-medicine systems for remote eye screening.
 
A key component of these trials is the increase in health information being captured to support the delivery of these services. CSIRO researchers across information technology, data integration, clinical terminology and biomedical engineering combine to find novel ways of capturing, integrating and analysing this information.

A specific area of work is the use of artificial intelligence techniques to extract meaning from the collected data.

Program for the 4RRHSS - and online registration