Telehealth Is Here

Lights,… camera,… action!

There is now a new, innovative way of caring for patients at our hospital as we have joined The Eastern Ontario Telehealth Network (EOTN).

Our hospital is one of 16 rural hospitals participating in the EOTN project, with the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) and the SCO Health Service ac-ting as the lead organizations. Linked via specialized telecommunication technologies we now have access to clinical consultations, education, and specialty services located in the three Ottawa hospitals.

Using videoconferencing technology (e.g. computers, video monitors, and cameras) along with medical instruments such as digital stethoscopes and special cameras, our patients can be examined or monitored by their local physicians. Through the Smart Systems for Health project, a private and secure telecommunications health network has been installed, connecting all the partners together. Eventually, it will link 20,000 healthcare providers across the province.

The EOTN is essential in bringing healthcare as close to home as possible for those living in rural communities such as ours. Telehealth projects are not meant to cut costs or replace in-person care. They have been designed to improve the way by which patients access their healthcare and how providers deliver it to them. Patients will not have to travel out of their community for consultations with some specialists. Instead they will receive specialized care close to home.

The primary focus of the EOTN project is to provide a full range of clinical consultation services along the continuum of care, from paediatric to cardiac acute care, to complex continuing care, and palliative care. The interactive telecommunications technologies will be used to:

§ allow providers to diagnose and treat patients
closer to their home;

§ provide scheduled educational services to
medical professionals, patients, and their families;

§ work toward the provision of a 24-hour emergency
telehealth consultative service;

§ assist in the recruitment and retention of
physicians and healthcare professionals in rural
and remote communities, by increasing support from
colleagues across the region.

Nurse Lori Lazette, Clinical Manager, Patient Care Services and Sylvie Péloquin, Vice-President Patient Care Services are enthusiastic about the specialized care that can now be offered here, in Hawkesbury.

A publicity campaign is currently underway to inform the community served by our hospital that clients can now ask their family physician to be referred to this consultation service. EOTN is a leading-edge implementation project made possible with the support of Health Canada through the Canadian Health Infostructure Partnerships Program (CHIPP).