Be Open

When the COVID- 19 pandemic caused lockdowns in Australia in March 2020, the Dean of Medicine and Health at UNE knew the devastating ramifications an outbreak would have on the capacity of regional and rural health facilities.

Professor Rod McClure had spent years thinking about how basic telehealth could evolve to the stage where hospital-level care was not dependent on a physical location. When he recognised the potential for devastation from the coronavirus pandemic, he stopped planning and started acting.

Within months remote monitoring technology had arrived in Armidale, where it could be given to COVID-19 patients to track their conditions while they stayed in their own homes.

The patient data would then streamed to a central command centre at Armidale Regional Hospital, where software would automatically monitor for signs of critical decline in patients, and trigger an alert if professional intervention was necessary.

The New England Virtual Hospital Network is now a major project for UNE – with planning underway to unlock the full potential for the program and the benefits it will have for regional and remote health.