Queensland Health has boosted its telehealth capacity to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Minister for Health, Steven Miles said the increased capacity would help ease the burden Coronavirus was placing on the State’s health system.
“This huge increase in online appointments will decrease the number of patients who need to physically present at hospitals,” Mr Miles said.
He said the increase would see the telehealth system’s online hosting capacity increase from 90 up to 1,600 users at any one time.
“It frees up hospitals and health clinics and also means some of our most at-risk patients with pre-existing conditions no longer need to travel away from their local community or enter hospital environments,” Mr Miles said.
He said other significant IT upgrades had also taken place to allow staff to work more responsively and remotely if required.
“eHealth Queensland has boosted the number of users who can now work from home and access all their existing corporate and clinical applications up to a capacity of 48,000,” Mr Miles said.
“Within the hospitals they have also increased the number of Follow Me desktop users by more than 50 per cent meaning health professionals can work from any computer.”
The Minister said internet capability within healthcare facilities had also been increased.
“All these increases in our capacity, speed and usability of technology does make a difference in the delivery of frontline hospital and health services for Queenslanders,” Mr Miles said.
