Patients benefit with IT backup
4 May 2005
www.thecouriermail.news.com.au
AN E-Health centre established jointly in Brisbane by the CSIRO and the State Government is applying the latest information technology to the health system to improve treatment options and lifestyles for patients.
The $15 million E-Health Research Centre in Brisbane's CBD, described by Premier Peter Beattie as "a brain magnet for the Smart State", is monitoring 4000 lung cancer patients at four public and two private hospitals in Queensland in order to establish a database to help oncologists compare and improve different treatments for the disease.
E-Health Research Centre chief executive Gary Morgan said it was also running a trial at the Prince Charles Hospital on Brisbane's northside of personal monitoring technology, worn on a hip holster, to detect falls in patients recovering from such conditions as strokes.
"This had potential to improve safety and quality inside hospitals and, with a growing acceptance of the benefits of home-based health care, to eventually improve safety and quality of life for patients recovering outside hospitals by using similar technologies," Mr Morgan said.
The CSIRO Board meets in Brisbane today to check on the progress of the E-Health Research Centre which opened 12 months ago with six staff. It has since grown to 22 staff including research scientists, applied scientists and information technology experts. Many have come to or returned to Queensland from Europe and interstate to work at the centre.
Mr Morgan said E-Health would become increasingly important, especially in a vast, decentralised state such as Queensland, where many regional and rural patients were unable to meet a health care worker in person. Gladstone, for example, was currently without a pediatrician, and parents and children were able to speak with a child specialist in Brisbane via video link operated by the University of Queensland Centre for Online Health.
But the E-Health centre, he said, was not about linking up doctor-patient relations, but about improving patient outcomes and treatments by putting clinicians in touch with the latest treatment results and outcomes in their fields and allowing them to benchmark their own performance against the world's best practice.
The lung cancer project, he said, had already established that lung cancer treatment and patient results were "on the money" with results in North America. It had also underlined the benefits of early intervention and operations.
The centre's health data integration system, used to analyse data related to lung cancer, will soon be adopted in a national bowel cancer screening program.
Another longer-term project related to digital X-rays and how they could be transmitted by computer between clinics and medical practitioners.
The centre has also established a PhD scholarship program in partnership with Queensland University of Technology and Griffith University to ensure a stream of innovative young scientists through the centre.
One of these new students will investigate how to manage the scheduling of cancer treatment using specialised cancer treatment facilities across Queensland and northern NSW.
"This is a crucial issue for ensuring patients get access to vital treatment when and where they need it," Mr Morgan said.