Enabling digital health services for regional and remote Australia
Australians living in regional and remote areas experience worse health outcomes and access to health services than Australians in major cities.
Factors such as geographic spread, low population density, limited infrastructure and higher costs for delivering rural and remote healthcare can limit access to important health services.
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for telehealth services. By November 2020, more than 3.2 million regional and remote Australians had accessed telehealth services.
The 2019 Australian Infrastructure Audit found that technological advancements are enabling health services to be more
digitally-oriented, from patient care to record keeping and infrastructure management.
Digital health services use technology to collect and share health information. This improves the quality, cost and accessibility of health services and infrastructure. Technology-enabled out- of-hospital healthcare models include
community, home-based and virtual care.
Enabling digital health technologies in regional and remote areas of Australia can improve equity of access and improved health outcomes, reduce costs associated with travel and delivering healthcare, and reduce avoidable hospitalisations.
Potential options to address the proposal include enabling digital health in regional hubs to improve the accessibility of health services for Australians living in regional and remote areas.
This would require the upgrade of existing facilities in regional Australia, and training for the existing health workforce, to enable them to provide digital health services.
Suitable telecommunications infrastructure will also be required to enable the transmission of data and video to health facilities in regional Australia.
Consultation with key stakeholders, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people, will be important to understanding needs and constraints and ensuring equitable distribution of outcomes
this proposal calls for program submissions that consider digital health service improvements at a jurisdictional level.
We encourage relevant health authorities to fully assess this opportunity in their respective state or territory (Stage 1 of Infrastructure Australia’s Assessment Framework) prior to identifying and analysing potential investment options (Stage 2 of Infrastructure Australia’s Assessment Framework).
Refer to Infrastructure Glossary for terms and definitions.