RACGP committed to supporting telehealth in general practice

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) recognises that telehealth provides considerable opportunities to improve health outcomes for patients in outer metropolitan, regional, rural and remote communities and is committed to supporting the profession during the telehealth rollout.

To guide GPs through telehealth consultations and provide a safety and quality framework for patients and GPs, the RACGP is working on a number of telehealth initiatives, including the development of the telehealth standards for general practitioners and an online telehealth training and education module that will be available next year.

The College is pleased to announce that the Department of Health and Ageing has recently engaged the RACGP in a project to develop the telehealth standards on video consultations for general practitioners.

Professor Claire Jackson, RACGP President, said there is an urgent need for the establishment and implementation of nation-wide telehealth standards, given Medicare rebates and financial incentives for video consultations for patients in outer metropolitan, regional and remote Australia, across a range of specialties, will be available from 1 July 2011. She added that through this initiative GPs will be able to more effectively facilitate other specialist involvement in patients' care through the use of videoconferencing in these areas.

“The telehealth standards on video consultations for general practitioners will be developed to ensure the identification of potential risks and risk mitigation strategies, including protocols for establishing patient identification, protecting patient privacy, and determining the level of clinical appropriateness of video consulting.

“Although timelines are extremely tight, the RACGP is in an ideal position to assist the government in developing the telehealth standards on video consultations for general practitioners,” she said.

Priority areas in the standards will focus on a process to identify participants in the telehealth consultations, determining if telehealth is appropriate for the individual patient or intended consultation and privacy and security of the consultation and data.

Professor Jackson said that the College is an established leader in setting national standards, including the 4^th edition of the RACGP Standards for general practices and welcomes the opportunity to further develop the Standards for general practices to include standards on video consultations.

“The RACGP will always seek opportunities to develop standards in general practice, as a major role of the College is to support standards and quality in general practice. As a leader in standards development the College will also be looking at developing standards to support other telehealth consulting modalities,” Professor Jackson concluded.

The telehealth standards taskforce, chaired by Dr Mike Civil, will meet for the first time at the end of June and the RACGP will provide members and other stakeholders with further information on the standards development during the consultation process.

The RACGP will continue to advocate for further implementation of telehealth supporting high quality primary healthcare delivery.

The telehealth standards on video consultations for general practitioners are planned to be available in October 2011.

Notes:

Telehealth definition

The RACGP defines ‘telehealth’ as the electronic transmission and storage of health information/images in the delivery of both clinical and nonclinical health related services, utilising a range of telecommunications technologies:

• Digital and facsimile images (including e-radiology)
• Dynamic data files including (tele-cardiology, digital U/S)
• Interactive voice files (tele-triage, phone, Skype)
• Asynchronous messaging (SMS, email, social networking)
• Remote monitoring (sensor based biometric data)
• Real time videoconferencing
• Web streaming, interactive/online education, simulators.

About the RACGP

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) is Australia’s largest professional general practice organisation and represents urban and rural general practitioners. We represent over 20,000 members working in or towards a career in general practice and are proud that over 18,000 general practitioners in Australia have chosen to be a member of the College. There are over 125 million general practice consultations taking place annually in Australia. Visit www.racgp.org.au.