PrimCareIT

Tele-Consultation

The project partners will explore how to overcome professional isolation in the primary health care (PHC) sector in remote areas. This will be achieved by elaborating, implementing and testing methods and tools that support tele-consultation.

Tele-consultation accounts for a substantial part of tele-medicine. It can be generally defined as a (audio-) visual communication link between health professionals. Tele-consultation enables the virtual communication between doctors of different disciplines or with specialists in other health care institutions like hospitals.

As more and more other health professionals in PHC (for example specialized nurses and physiotherapists) have their own consultations and the request for inter-professional collaboration, there is a need for technical and methodological support for communication and consultations between all health professionals in PHC.

In the years 2012-2014 the PrimCareIT project partners carried out seven pilots on tele-consultation. Find here the documentation of their activities:

Situation analysis

  • Analysis of the country specific working models within remote primary health, e.g. communication and division of work between GP and nurse.
  • Literature study on best practices in tele-consultation.
  • Needs assessment in the pilot regions, e.g. what kind of technology and methods, for example webcam, is still needed.
  • Process assessment on how to implement tele-consultation in the daily work routine
  • Assessment of legal aspects of tele-consultation.

Report on situation analysis, process description, and state-of-art of tele-consultation solutions in the 7 pilot sites and in the Baltic Sea Region. [Abstract] [Download]

Planning

  • Set-up of the pilot.
  • Equip at least ten doctor's offices in remote primary health for tele-consultation. According to regional/national health policy, nurses will also be equipped if performing home visits.
  • Equip the corresponding medical specialists.
  • Carry out tele-consultations between GP-nurse, GP-resident medical specialist, GP-medical specialist in hospital.

Implementation plan of tele-consultation pilots [Abstract] [Download]

Mid-term evaluation

Mid-term evaluation report in tele-consultation implementation including necessary adjustments

Fully implementation

Report on fully implemented tele-consultation infrastructure and running processes in the pilot sites

Sustainabilty

Guidelines for implementing tele-consultation and tele-mentoring

Watch the video about tele-consultation