e-health initiatives at Country Health SA Mental Health - "fostering collaboration and strengthening networks"

This paper provides an overview of country South Australia mental health service efforts in maximising the potential of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), to ensure that sustainable, high quality care reaches to all of our communities across rural and remote South Australia. Over the past decade, innovative use of video‐conferencing in conjunction with consultation‐liaison primary care psychiatry model has helped overcome vast distances, to address fragmented and poorly coordinated services. Country Health SA will begin by using the Digital Regions Initiative to upgrade its broadband infrastructure to form a statewide SA Health Digital Telehealth Network. This will enable implementation of various ICT applications and expansion of services, to maximise the benefits of the digital network.

We are currently trialling “real‐time” interactive web based communication and networking technologies, such as wiki collaboration portals, and web conferencing, to facilitate “real‐time” discussions amongst geographically isolated workforce. This has enabled staff to contribute to the further development of the service as well as to share clinical ideas and experiences with other networks across the state. Online tools are being used to facilitate ongoing educational and learning process—these tools are easily accessible and available on demand in more than one format. The potential of many of the technologies are well understood and exploited in other industries; Country Health SA (CHSA) is devising ways to overcome barriers to their widespread use in rural mental health services.