Healthy gains from the digital revolution: Innovation Series

THE digital revolution is a vehicle for positive change and improvement in many industries - and none moreso than healthcare - but many business leaders are struggling to understand its long term ramifications. That is the emphasis of a special Innovation Series event in Melbourne next Wednesday which features three leaders in the field explaining how digital technologies are already impacting Australia's community and business futures in ways that are not generally understood.

 

The theme, Digital Innovation Enabling Healthcare Solutions, is of particular interest at this time, with healthcare widely cited as being an early beneficiary of the roll-out of the National Broadband Network and other improvements in Australia's connectivity.

Whether the healthcare productivity ‘dividend' that is anticipated from the digital revolution comes about could be more a factor of how the technology is rolled out and accepted by both health care professionals and patients as it is about timeframes and connectivity speeds.

That is a major point Digital Business insights (DBi) CEO John Sheridan will hammer home, tapping into his 12 years of detailed research into the digital revolution - especially his most recent study which maps the digital economy of Melbourne's northern Local Government areas. 

Mr Sheridan paints a compelling picture of what the digital revolutions really is, based on DBi's analysis of more than 50,000 business surveys in Australia. He also points out what it isn't - especially where conventional wisdom and the ‘official' views of the digital revolution vary markedly from what DBi's detailed, long-term research reveals. Mr Sheridan offers surprising insights into what that implies for the future of health care.

At the frontlines of health care, the need for fast, effective, reliable information technology has never been greater. Digital systems are the cornerstone of effective future health care, according to Royal District Nursing Service (RDNS) general manager for Internal Investments, Philip Robinson.

But the digital revolution is doing more than changing methods of health care, it is also changing the relationship between health care frontline staff and their patients - and this is a focus of Mr Robinson's presentation.

RDNS wants to help older Australians to stay in their homes longer, and to reduce hospital admissions via increased use of Telehealth services delivered over high-speed broadband. Mr Robinson will discuss the drivers for increased use of Telehealth and the productivity gains obtained by RDNS as a result of using virtual nursing services via Telehealth.

Mr Robinson has written major submissions for the Digital Regions Initiative (for Stroke Management and Aged Care Assessment), the Broadband Enabled Innovation Program (for Medication Management) and the NBN Telehealth Pilot Program (for Chronic Disease Management).

He has managed a number of strategic projects for RDNS including establishment of an ICT Strategic Plan, Remote Patient Management of Medication Compliance via video-conferencing, establishment of an enterprise Video-Conferencing System and the introduction of smartphone-based mobility solutions for personal care workers.

With economic forecasting predicting that, by 2043, Australia's current model of health service delivery will consume 40 percent of all Australian taxes, and health expenditure by State Governments exceeding their total forecast revenues, the views of CSIRO's specialist in this area, Dr Ian Oppermann, will highlight these ramifications at the Innovation Series event.

 

As the director of the CSIRO's Flagship for Digital Productivity, Dr Oppermann is navigating the many digital options that can assist the healthcare sector in combating what he describes as "a changing case mix and an identified productivity gap of around 20 percent".

Digital health information systems and technologies, broadband communications and big data analytics are all areas which Dr Oppermann believes can help provide cost-effective services in Australia's health system, offering better access to the regions, greater efficiency and higher quality health care.

The Innovation Series, now in its ninth year, provides a unique forum convening researchers, industry and government to address and discuss leading developments in sustainability, while also encouraging the exchange of ideas and inviting new collaborations.

The Innovation Series is an initiative of Zernike Australia and is supported nationally by the Australian Institute for Commercialisation and CSIRO, while in Melbourne the sponsors are ANSTO and RMIT university. Business Acumen is the media partner for the Australian Innovation Series.

http://www.innovationseries.com.au/

 

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