Queenslanders can access doctors from home with telehealth

More Queenslanders across the state can now see a doctor without leaving their home thanks to a massive boost in telehealth services.

The state’s telehealth system’s capacity has quintupled the number of online users it can host at any one time.

Health Minister Steven Miles said the boosted capacity will help ease the burden the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic will place on the state’s health system.

“Queensland Health has increased capacity of telehealth services to a patient’s home significantly from 90 up to 1600 users online at any one time,” Mr Miles said.

“This huge increase in online appointments will decrease the number of patients who need to physically present at hospitals.

“It frees up hospitals and health clinics and also means some of our most at-risk patients with pre-existing conditions no longer need to travel away from their local community or enter hospital environments.

“The life-saving work of our health professionals is now being offered to people in their homes by eHealth Queensland and Clinical Excellence Queensland teams.

“I would like to sincerely thank them for their dedication to improving our help system, that will indeed help save lives.”

Mr Miles said other significant IT upgrades have taken place to allow staff to work more responsively and remotely if required.

“eHealth Queensland has boosted the number of users who can now work from home and access all their existing corporate and clinical applications up to a capacity of 48,000.

“Within the hospitals they have also increased the number of ‘Follow Me’ desktop users by more than 50 per cent meaning health professionals can work from any computer.

“Internet capability within healthcare facilities has also been increased from 1.5 gigabits per second to 7 gigabits with ability to increase further to 10Gb/s in the short term if required.

“All these increases in our capacity, speed and usability of technology does make a difference in the delivery of frontline hospital and health services for Queenslanders.”

The latest information on novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is available on Queensland Health’s website at www.health.qld.gov.au

ENDS

Vision of a telehealth conference: https://vimeo.com/401242664/1b8eec0739

 Media contact: Katharine Wright - 0428 957 903