‘No boundaries’ for Glenn
Bridging the geographical gap between aged care managers and workers to stop employees feeling isolated is paramount, according to Glenn Payne, an aged care technology enthusiast.
Glenn Payne, right, demonstrates the My Health Clinic At Home tablet technology to a client.
Mr Payne, Feros Care's chief information officer (CIO), could be named 2013 Healthcare CIO of the Year, when the iTnews CIO Benchmark Awards are presented at a gala dinner in Melbourne tonight.
Feros Care is a community owned, not for profit organisation offering care and lifestyle support for older Australians.
The iTnews CIO Benchmark Awards judges will consider Mr Payne's nomination for his lead role in the implementation of a high definition video conferencing system, against the achievements of two senior state public servants, New South Wales Health CIO Greg Wells and his South Australian counterpart, David Johnston.
“This was an organisation wide solution and rolling it out was a team effort,” he says. “A key point in the success of this project was making the system as easy to use as possible,” Mr Payne says.
Feros Care’s video conferencing system gives clients access to telehealth consultations and provides them with an enriching form of social contact, at the same time as helping staff to work collaboratively over large distances in more efficient ways.
Feros Care also wanted a solution to enable video conferencing consultations between health professionals (including GPs, specialists and nurses) and patients, from the comfort of their own home.
“This meant the system needed to be very secure as it was dealing with patient data and also needed to work over low bandwidth links,” he says.
With a philosophy of ‘no boundaries’, Mr Payne and his team have delivered a solution that allows Feros Care to use video conferencing right across the organisation for a wide range of meetings, interviews and other communications, resulting in substantial savings, particularly on travel costs.
The Benchmark Awards judging panel was particularly impressed with Mr Payne's detailed calculation of return on investment (ROI), which found the system had paid for itself within its first year of operation.
“This project offered one of the best articulated measurements of ROI and is a strong example of a not for profit pushing the boundaries,” the judges said in a joint statement.
“Telehealth has struggled to reach its promise and healthcare requires outspoken technologists like Glenn Payne to help sell the benefits to the community.”
The system has underpinned Feros Care's expansion into eight new community care service regions and helped it win $1 million in commonwealth funding to trial ‘in room’ video conferencing for residents of three of its aged care villages, as well as $2.7 million to support the My Health Clinic At Home (MHCAH) pilot project.
The purpose built MHCAH system uses medical grade Bluetooth devices that talk wirelessly to a tablet, then securely transport the client’s vital signs to a cloud based portal. Telehealth nurses based at Feros Care's head office can then assess the data and make clinical decisions.
“Video conferencing has brought this product to life by enabling nurses, doctors and specialists to call the clients on the tablet in their home, and have consultations that would have usually needed to happen in the doctor’s surgery, or even in hospital,” Mr Payne explains.
