Telehealth surgery technology saves life in Queensland public hospital

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Lifesaving new technology rolled out in three Central Queensland hospitals has allowed specialists to successfully complete neurosurgery via telehealth. It is hoped the equipment, which allows surgeons to dial in remotely to complex operations, will be a game changer for regional healthcare. The Rockhampton Hospital's deputy director of surgery, Michael Lamparelli, has been pushing for the technology and facilitated the first lifesaving surgery.

Transcript

00:00An excellent neurosurgeon called Craig Winter in the rural Brisbane has been teaching lots

00:07of us around regional Queensland how to do emergency brain surgery. Just two of us from

00:12Rockhampton have been down and he rang both my colleague and myself who've been on that

00:17course to find that neither of us were local and available. Chris had had a hard day at

00:22the office and I was in Brisbane at a party when I got this call. There I was wondering

00:29what to do. He told me there was a gentleman down in the emergency department who wouldn't

00:33survive the transfer down to Brisbane which would take several hours so he asked if I

00:38could get in there. I was aware of this device that we'd purchased sitting in the corner and

00:43not actually commissioned yet and said hang on I've got a very strong-willed young female

00:49surgeon on call. I know she's up for it. I'll give her a call and I put the two of them in

00:55contact with each other and then went about trying to get that device into the theatre

00:59and dial in. So you were facilitating a connection between a neurosurgeon in Brisbane and the surgeon

01:07who was on call with the patient who was then able to perform this operation that she'd never

01:12done before. Talk us through this equipment. I mean what exactly does it consist of? I imagine

01:17it's a bit more advanced than a zoom call. Well it's a boom cart that has a 4k camera that you can

01:26manipulate. You set the system up so it's pointing roughly in the right direction and then remotely

01:32you can control the focus, the zoom, the pan of angle and getting in the right place. So I was actually

01:40controlling the camera and then sharing that screen to Craig who was sitting in a laptop elsewhere in

01:48Brisbane and I could see him there and he could then communicate through the device to the surgeons

01:54to advise them how they were going. He was very good. He had a quick phone call to Leanne. He explained

02:01roughly what she was going to do and Leanne called in Ruth who's one of our orthopaedic surgeons also on call

02:07and the two of them then set up this case. And you say that this patient you know wouldn't have

02:13survived a transfer to Brisbane. Is the idea that this would only be used in those real emergency

02:19situations that were potentially life or death? I think it's for a place like ours where we have

02:26two peripheral hospitals with general practitioners who are surgically trained and they get stretched.

02:34It's the ability for us to support them. We have GP obstetricians who also find things they don't see

02:42very often and my obstetric colleagues from the centre can call to them and they can have support

02:49for this as well. And we're using it as a training tool for GP registrars and our own registrars if

02:56they're away from the centre to do things. So it's not just for emergencies, it's for all sorts of things.

03:01And how were you able to get your hands on this piece of equipment?

03:07Well I originally saw a version of this equipment some three years ago at a meeting and I was

03:13approached by somebody who knew my partner who'd been in similar industries in the past and asked

03:20whether we'd take it on and saw central Queensland as an excellent test bed for it. It took quite some

03:26time. We didn't have financial support from the hospital at the time so we went out to our local

03:32charity CQ Shines and they agreed it was a great thing to support. We travelled around showcasing to

03:39local industries in Gladstone and Emerald and Rockhampton and trying to put the word out there

03:44and then raising money with evening balls and so on and the donations of patients and other members of

03:50the community into CQ Shines to support it. And how expensive are they? Is it feasible that other

03:57hospitals could potentially fundraise for their own or do you think this is something that if it was to

04:01be rolled out should be government funded? I'm not sure if we've got the best deal because we're first

04:08off it's it's priced at an amount that is it should be supported if you can prove that it's going to

04:16work and I guess we need to show that for people and show that it makes a difference. It's difficult

04:23to put a cost on a life isn't it but I'm sure it was worth it just for this one.

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