Moving beyond telehealth: adapting enhanced clinical processes with technology to improve access, equity, efficiency and population health in rural and remote Australia

Start Date

23 February 2021

End Date

10 April 2025

Project Participants

Curtin University, WA Country Health Service, WA Department of Health, WA Primary Health Alliance

Status: Completed

Tags: assisted reality (AR), cancer care, capability uplift, general practice, health equity, healthcare access, healthcare data, primary care, regional rural remote health, virtual care, workforce

Opportunity 

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated telehealth expansion and adoption across Australia and highlighted the potential of virtual care to improve access to healthcare for rural and remote communities. The project was established to identify how telehealth and digital technologies could evolve to support new models of care in regional Western Australia (WA) and improve the efficiency of healthcare service delivery without compromising privacy, quality and/or safety. 

Project Objectives  

The project aimed to understand barriers and enablers to adoption of virtual care, evaluate innovative digital technologies, and develop practical recommendations to support high-quality, sustainable healthcare delivery in regional and remote Australia. 

This project was delivered through two phases.  

  1. The first involved consultation with WA health workforce representatives, consumers and digital health vendors to identify key health areas where telehealth and outreach could be better used to improve patient and provider satisfaction and patient outcomes.  
  2. The second explored three pilot streams from opportunities identified in Phase 1. 

The project delivered evidence and resources across three key streams in phase 2:  

  • uplifting workforce capability for digital health, by identifying practical opportunities at WA universities to strengthen digital health capability for future health professionals; 
  • implementing assisted reality technologies in telechemotherapy, demonstrating the value in a pilot that led to the wider adoption of this tool within WACHS cancer services; and 
  • enabling data-enabled clinical decision support systems in primary care by establishing governance and data-sharing pathways for future research use of general practice data through Primary Sense. 

The project has strengthened Australia’s evidence base for digital health implementation in rural and remote settings. It informed workforce training approaches, supported translation of assisted reality technologies into clinical practice, and generated actionable recommendations for policymakers, service providers and digital health vendors. 

Integrity, Excellence,
Teamwork and Authenticity

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