11

 
 
November  

A  National  Telehealth  Strategy  For  

Australia  –  For  Discussion  
Michael  Gill  
           

Australian National Consultative Committee on Electronic Health  

 A National Telehealth Strategy for Australia

Preface
This document has been prepared by a sub-committee1 of the Australian National Consultative
Committee on Electronic Health (ANCCEH) and has been supported by Global Access Partners.
It is an endorsed document of the committee and may be circulated. The ANCCEH represents the
major ICT industry players and other stakeholder groups and has been meeting for six years.
The Committee aims to raise issues of national importance, to influence government policy and
to support the interests of its members.
The following telehealth strategy details our thinking as to what is important in telehealth from a
systemic national perspective. Telehealth is not a local issue but offers the health system, both
public and private, the opportunity to provide new models of care efficiently. Key principles and
observations include:

• The requirement to regard the carriage of telehealth data, voice an image as a utility;
• Such carriage needs to be based on open standards and of consistent quality irrespective
of geographic location
• Service content needs to be focused nationally on the main four or five key medical
conditions which offer most return to the community
• Telehealth services need to be combined with other services in order to achieve
widespread adoption by the clinical community.
We emphasise the fact that telehealth itself is less of a technical issue than it is a clinical
workflow issue, especially in primary care environments. The current discussion often focuses
on the rural-to-urban use of telehealth. We suggest that is less importance than the use of
telehealth to break down the divide between general practitioners, allied health, specialists and
the acute sector. Telehealth is fundamentally about enhancing team based care, collaboration
and patient access.
The views contained in this document are those of the committee and its member individuals and
do not necessarily represent those of the organisations to which they belong.

Michael Gill
Chair
[email protected]

                                                                                                                       
1
 NeHTA,  IBM,  Microsoft,  RSL  Care  and  BUPA  

ANCCEH   Page  2  
 
Introduction
Telehealth as a concept is interchangeable with telemedicine in terms of utility and addresses the
collection and/or exchange of information electronically between doctors, allied health and
patients in both synchronous and asynchronous modes. It ranges from telephone call centres to
vital sign monitoring to video imagery for the delivery of health-at-a-distancei. Telehealth has
particular relevance for aged care, disaster situations, individual clinician support and for team
based support for complex conditions. As such, telehealth in Australia is ideally placed to
support major national programs associated with dementia, mental health, diabetes and regional
concerns related to rehabilitation, acute waiting list relief and outpatient support.
Research shows that Telehealth can enhance quality of care by better supporting chronic disease
management, application of best practices, and improvements of knowledge and skill
development in local care providers and improvement of care coordination. Telehealth
demonstrated improvements in timeliness of care, leading to improved outcomes. Furthermore,
there were numerous examples of Telehealth being the catalyst for leading practice changes
which result in better quality of careii.
Visit-based care in healthcare practices and institutions is the most expensive form of care
delivery and physicians the most expensive (and scarce) resource. “By extending the healthcare
system using other communication and collaboration technologies and making the best use of all
clinicians and staff in the healthcare system, we can develop a scalable healthcare system that
will be a model of the care delivery system of the future”iii.
Systemic Focus and Pressure Points
“Telehealth around the world, and in Australia, is currently focussed on specialist consultation to
patients in rural and remote locations. It concentrates on selected medical specialties, which are
least compromised by the limitations associated with video-consultation. In most services,
(relatively expensive) hardware video-conferencing equipment is utilised” (page 5, UniQuest Report
16807, Telehealth Assessment Final Report, 28 June 2011).

Our scan of global online health strategies do not reveal a common or core group of services that
should be provided by national telehealth services. Service evolution appears to gain
prominence from first mover advantage, from clearly defined rural demands and from political
“favourites” funding. What is clear is that in-situ medico-political turbulence provides the
impetus and government provides some or all of the funding. The private sector, as a general
rule, tends to be idiosyncratic and driven by value add opportunities. By way of example, the
Indian private health care market delivery via video is more advanced than is the case in
Australia with Apollo Health being the leading exponent.
The main systemic expansion areas associated with the Australian health system are:

• A well funded desire to address mental health service divides especially between rural
and urban areas with a focus on depression.
• A restructure of the aged care system and strengthening the current policy setting
associated with aging in place

ANCCEH   Page  3  
 
 • Deliberate but undirected funding for telehealth
• Under funding for a personally controlled electronic health record (PCEHR)
• The emerging opportunities to deliver health and wellness services via the National
Broadband Network
• The plan to coalesce the current jurisdictional video networks to form a national fabric
for the public acute sector.
As illustrated below:

National  Telehealth

Aged   PC
Care EHR

Mental  Health

Primary  and  Private  Provider  Telehealth

Acute  Care  video  network

National  NBN

The above diagram has one major limitation and that is the inclusion of the private health
providers including GP’s, Specialists’, private hospitals and private insurance. Private health has
yet to engage in the telehealth debate in this country in any significant way. The opportunity for
this group probably relates to aggregating and coordinating value add services such as post
operative follow-up and extending practice revenue opportunities.
A national telehealth framework must deliberately focus on a set of manageable telehealth
services that will deliver the greatest health and wellness outcome. Our scan of the available
material and our understanding of the Australian health system leads us to make the following
recommendation as regards whole-of-system focus areas.
Recommendation 1- Focus Areas
Broad health system areas of high impact relate to:

• Encouraging home based access to care for the aged, the disabled and selected others
• Addressing acute sector waiting lists by providing on line bookings and status alerts
• Improving access to specialists for rural GP’s and allied health providers
• Need to support national programs proving new care delivery models for mental
health and aged care
• Integration of primary and allied health

ANCCEH   Page  4  
 
 • Specialist access for key conditions such as oncology
• Pre and post natal maternity services
These concerns translate to health care delivery processes in the following areas:

• Home based rehabilitation, drug management and post operative wound care
• Acute care services booking online and improved collaboration for team based care
delivery via joint coordination and electronic alerts
• Access and reach to key services in rural areas associated with mental health
(depression counselling in particular), dementia assessment and care and clinical staff
in-service training.
• Improved coordination and provision of mental health services and aged care support
services in metropolitan and regional areas
• The ability of GP’s, specialists and those clinicians in the public health sector to
collaborate and consult in both real time and via store and forward methods.
• Provide patients in both rural and urban areas with better access to specialist services,
educational material and online peer group support via portals – example being
virtual maternity and aged care.
The relative impact of each focus area is displayed below:

Proposed  Focus  Areas

High
Image  based  store  and  
forward  diagnostics
Interactive  data  for   Video  based    GP  and  
Potential Health System Impact

drug  management Specialist  consultations

Video  based  
Video  based  depression  
rehabilitation
counselling Video  based  team  
Video  based  staff  in-­‐ collaboration
service Virtual  maternity  portal

Data  based  
online  booking Video  based  
Video  based  mental  and   wound  care
child  support  -­‐ admin
Data  based  dementia  
assessment
Text  alerts

Low

Low Difficulty of Execution High

ANCCEH 2011

ANCCEH   Page  5  
 
The widespread use of the internet means that availability of innovative web tools and processes
(Web 2.02) to assess, monitor, evaluate, collaborate and explore medical conditions by both
patients and practitioners is a reality. There are a wealth of sites and tools currently available but
the level of innovation is yet to explode.
There is a quiet revolution going on. It is a revolution about information access, equity of access
and participatory medicine. The old adage that the ‘doctor knows best’ is being questioned,
initially by those of the baby boomer generation but especially by the millenniums. The huge
increase in the incidence of complex chronic disease means that primary care practitioners
simply are unable to keep up with the latest research, new modes of treatment and, in Australia,
rarely participate in team based care provision. Our primary model is one of lone practitioners
providing services in sequence.
The ability of Web 2.0 technologies and social networking sites to merge and mix health data,
personal information and other types of information (commonly known as mush-ups) combined
with the increasing popularity of mobile devices suggests that medical doctors, nurses, allied
health professional and patients along with their carers may well be pushed down innovative
ways of building new health care delivery models. What is increasingly evident is that demand
by patients and their carers for better access, for better tools and to engage in the dialogue about
their own care is strong and increasing.
These considerations suggest that telehealth is more than the delivery of healthcare services. It is
about tailoring social networking to support health and wellness activities of both providers and
receivers. The increasing use of telemonitoring such as a patient wearing a 24 hour ECG pack
will increase and will stimulate greater patient participation. There are literally hundreds of
software tools available for users of smart phones addressing everything from fitness to pain
management.
It is our view that telehealth as a series of delivered solutions will soon be taken over by platform
based services offering a variety of tools and customisable services including social networking.
The current debate around Cloud computing is reflective of this transition. One significant
implication of this is that data collected at the platform level can potentially be repurposed and
reused across a variety of health and fitness settings.
National coordination
The situation in Australia is that there are many hundreds of pilot tests and demonstration
telehealth services scattered across the country in both acute and primary care. Some combine
voice, data and video while others concentrate on monitoring data capture and transmission. The
vast majority of these innovations are personality lead by one or a few highly energetic
clinicians, operating on a shoe- string budget without any detailed plans for scalability or
sustainability. In other words, these flowers of innovation will and do whither quickly. The
fundamental question as a nation is to define the key priority areas and focus resources towards
these.
In order to do this effectively all proposals and innovations need to address the following four
key issues:
                                                                                                                       
2
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0    

ANCCEH   Page  6  
 
Recommendation 2 – Selection Criteria
1. Potential for long term sustainability of the service
2. Ability to integrate public and private aspects of the health system in recognition of the
patient’s journey through both systems.
3. Addressed and published clinical protocols specifically for video
4. Adequate professional indemnity insurance provisions reflective of the change in the
locus of care telehealth may provide
There is a requirement to ensure that clinicians are given appropriate guidance on the
implementation, set-up and use of telehealth services. Addressing the use aspect, clinical
protocols and medical insurance are closely aligned. When not to use video consultation is
essential to understand. When to include follow-up is also critical. For example, during an
oncology video consultation the specialist may be consulting with a rurally based patient and
their family in addition to a local clinician. After the consultation it may be essential that the
specialist provide the drug dose information discussed to all parties in written form via email.
National coordination would be greatly enhanced if the following were provided:

• National directory for telehealth,

• Support for a competitive market of interoperable telehealth solution suppliers,
• Consumer oriented solutions
• Development of gateways between existing state and territory networks
• The establishment of a one-stop shop for telehealth information
Recommendation 3 - Insurance
We also believe that the Australian government should consider providing a ceiling providing
national indemnity cover for all forms of video consultations. The industry providing insurance
services to clinicians is fragmented and not aligned to emerging national priorities. Leadership is
required to ensure that clinical protocols for telehealth are understood and covered by the
numerous insurance providers.
The current large video networks available in each of the public health jurisdictions are to be
integrated with the northern areas of Australia beginning the process this year. In addition to this
movement the National Broadband Network (NBN) will be deployed with a major health
services component. These two significant public sector actions offer enormous potential for
interconnectivity and the consequently offer the ability to provide much greater national reach
for health services delivery. The NBN provides the catalyst to ensure that telehealth carriage is
standards based and is treated as a utility for all to access.
Aged Care
Telehealth is emerging as a strong enabler for the Aged Care industry and will continue to
strengthen as our population continues to age and we move towards care for this age group being
executed outside the four walls of acute facilities. The growing number of gated aged care
communities that include both low and high levels of care evidence this. For the rest of this
section the phrase ‘aged care’ should be considered as including the disability sector as both

ANCCEH   Page  7  
 
groups require care-in-place as a first outcome and later residential care environments may be
required.
Earlier this year, the Federal Government has identified Aged Care as a ‘telehealth trailblazer’.
There are a wide range of aged care-related telehealth possibilities ranging from people using a
computer to send details about their blood pressure or sugar levels over the internet to a
community nurse, to video consultations with the patient able to see and speak to a doctor
without leaving their own home; to assisted living solutions that help track medicine
consumption, fitness, nutrition and also providing cognitive training. Many of the above
elements can occur in the home and as such, relate to current policy settings supporting of care-
in-place.
The Productivity Commission’s ‘Caring for Older Australians’ draft report noted the difficulty
that aged care facilities currently face in getting doctors to visit, or having specialist doctors
make home visits to elderly patients. While the report notes that technology will not
significantly reduce the demand for labour in aged care, it did view it as a way to provide better
in-home care more economically.
On July 1 2011, the Australian Government introduced the telehealth initiative. This initiative
aims to address the barriers to accessing medical services for eligible telehealth areas.
Telehealth provides financial incentives to eligible residential aged care services that enable
patients to participate in a telehealth consultation with a specialist, consultant physician or
consultant psychiatrist. Whilst a step forward, the General Practitioner, who provides the bulk of
aged care services, is excluded from this initiative. Also excluded are key Allied Health
providers such as Occupational Therapists, psychologists and clinic nurse coordinators, to name
a few. We regard this exclusion as unhelpful. The view is that all community care programs
could also potentially incorporate telehealth services and equipment in the future.
In an Access Economics ‘Telehealth for Aged Care’ report dated November 2010, a cost benefits
analysis (CBA) was provided around the introduction of telehealth intervention into existing
aged care programs. Three pilot sites were modelled; an area of Townsville in Queensland’s
mid-north; the coastal communities of Minnamurra and Kiama Downs south of Wollongong,
NSW; and an area of west Armidale, NSW. Results demonstrated that over the course of the
intervention (2012-2013/2013-2014), net financial benefits are expected to be $6.6 million. This
is equivalent to a benefit-cost ratio (BCR) of 1.61 to 1 (a 61% return on investment). From the
Australian Government perspective, the BCR is 1.17 to 1 (a 17% return on investment). In
addition, benefits to patients in terms of improved health outcomes are estimated to be $9.5
million in Net Present Value (NPV) terms.
Based on these proposed attractive return on investment percentages, ‘Telehealth for Aged Care’
should remain a government focus, with more targeted and aligned funding moving forward, ie.
for areas such as GP consultations and Community Nurse/Nurse Practitioner consultations.
Some specific current and new areas for focus across the aged care continuum include:

• Wound management
• Dementia support
• Mental health support related to social isolation
• Comprehensive geriatric assessments

ANCCEH   Page  8  
 
 • Home monitoring
• Community nursing
• Ambient Assisted Living

One new area of focus is ‘Ambient Assisted Living (AAL)’. This is where ICT is used to assist
people with disabilities and the ageing population to remain at home whilst increasing their
quality of life. It includes safety, security, healthcare in the home (monitoring of chronic
diseases, medicine consumption, fitness, nutrition, cognitive training), social networking and
entertainment. Currently, there is a lack of standards, lack of standard solutions, poor
interoperability (devices, communication protocols, data formats, application environments) and
high development costs. AAL is striving to provide a universal open platform and reference
specification that can consolidate telehealth projects. Currently, projects in Australia are limited
to pilots with no single open universal platform available that will allow devices to interoperate
and information to be shared.
Underlying all of this is the issue with technology literacy in relation to the average age of
people in residential care and there mixed abilities to manage technology. At the residential
community end of the scale are 65 year olds ranging to the high-end residential care receivers
aged over 84 years. This cohort is not currently technologically aware and poses a significant
challenge. Along with the roll out of technology, there also needs to be a major campaign
developed around health literacy and digital literacy for this emerging group of people.
Recommendation 4 – Aged Care
From a practical perspective we see telehealth (essentially video consultation) for residential
aged care communities as being the first stage followed by aged care in the home being the next.
Both will require:

• A choice between mobile and non-mobile telehealth video installation

• A mechanism to reward GP’s for video consultations with both the elderly and the nurse
carers involved (home and residential care)
• The ability of specialists to support residential aged care without GP’s in attendance and
possibly with GP referrals
• Aged care is essentially a team based activity due to comorbidities. As such both point-
to-point and point-to-multipoint telehealth services (especially involving allied health)
need to be provided along with adequate quality of service.
• Service provision via telehealth needs to be widened to include clinical discussions (such
as pre-acute admission issues, case conferencing and dementia assessment) and for
improved administrative coordination.
• Supporting enhanced clinical care in-situ where nurses can obtain telehealth based
support from other clinicians (i.e. for palliative care) and to better co-ordinate treatment
• An understanding that the burden on nurses will increase with increasing telehealth
deployment and, as such, nurses required greater support.
• A recognition that the facility service fee for aged care establishments using video
consultation ($60 per session) is unlikely to be an aid in adoption as the average size of
an aged care facility in Australia as 71 beds.

ANCCEH   Page  9  
 
Standards
The opportunity for the exchange of patients vital sign data, of video imagery, static imagery and
of associated voice communications across national networks such as those detailed previously
will require the definition and articulation of appropriate standards that allow interchange
between networks. These interchange points are known as gateways and need to be
architectured in a standardised manner across all networks. This is essential for the accurate and
reliable transport of video signals and to ensure service reliability.
Much of the current limited debate is concerned with the delivery of health services between two
points, typically doctor to specialist. In reality, the experience of many across the system and the
current policy setting encourage team based care. This necessitates the design in terms of
connectivity architecture of networks to enable point to multipoint services. For example, a post
operative patient at home in a rural area dealing with a metropolitan based specialist and a
regionally based community nurse.
There is a requirement for a body that is respected by both industry and government to perform a
mixed role related to standards developments and industry catalyst. Such a body would be
required to:

• Develop specifications, conformance tests and acting as a catalyst for standards

development.
• Develop requirements and architectural designs for new national infrastructure, such as a
national telehealth directory service
• Harmonize clinical and technical standards, as may be appropriate
• Supporting consumer and community participation
• Supporting the development of infrastructure
Recommendation 5 - Standards
As a consequence we strongly adopt the position of a standards based approach and open
architecture standards developed in harmony with prevailing world best practices and not
developed simply for Australia.
We also support the role of NeHTA in this arena.
Risk Mitigation
Risk can be divided into adoption, financial and legal risks. Each of these risks has
interdependencies.
Adoption
Ultimately, the introduction of any new technology in health is a change management challenge.
The aim in this case being to change the way clinicians deliver services and along with the way
patients consume them. Clinicians and consumers tend to be motivated by similar objectives, but
with different thresholds for change requiring different approaches. A consumer is more likely to
embrace a new technology on the promise of its benefit, than clinicians who will tend to wait on
the evidence of impact being widely accepted. Technology companies and Governments can

ANCCEH   Page  10  

 
learn a lot from the industry most adept at changing clinician behaviour, the Pharmaceutical
industry.
The Pharmaceutical industry understands that clinicians are motivated by the following:
1. Maximizing patient care
2. Clinical evidence supporting efficacy
3. Peer group support
Remuneration as a variable is only important when the above characteristics are unclear.
It is the clinician who needs to be convinced that Telemedicine meets each of the three criteria
above. For telemedicine to take its place in mainstream medicine, the body of evidence will need
to be expanded to demonstrate statistically significant clinical outcomes.
Being able to capture and communicate the value of participation to consumers and clinician
alike requires a pragmatic approach. We would do well to remember the principles of ‘crossing
the chasm’ published by Geoffrey Moore (below). Change agents know that although most
people are interested in innovation, the majority of people will only adopt a product or service
when the value proposition can be clearly communicated (even better if by word of mouth) and
significantly exceeds their perceived risk of participation.

Financial
Scale is predicated on a sustainable business model. The financial advantage to payers of moving
services online does imply an investment by them in harvesting the benefit. It is unreasonable
however, to expect Insurers and Government’s bear the full participation cost. There will need to
be a reliance on co-pay by the consumer in the acquisition of devices, in fee for service and in
the use of web-conferencing technologies already pervasive in the home.
Current trends point to a willingness by consumers to cover some of these costs. A range of
consumer devices are sold each year which provide a rich landscape for including telemonitoring
in a telemedicine service. The ‘internet of things’ continues to grow across the mobile platform
and consumer health devices.

ANCCEH   Page  11  

 
We believe that financial incentives for participation need to be clear and easily communicated.
If we are to rely on the medical workforce to sell the benefits of telemedicine to consumers, we
need to make sure it is easy to explain payments and savings from participation.
Deployment
The plethora of available video conferencing solutions with differing performance characteristics
and functionality, and varying degrees of standards compliance, tends to confound the choice of
a 'best' or even 'top few' systems. The existing range of videoconferencing services includes both
high-end proprietary systems, which would have the advantage of connecting with corresponding
systems in public sector health enterprises (e.g. state or hospital systems), and low complexity
simple web-based systems, which are more affordable and still able to provide a fit for purpose
consultation.
During the video consultation there may be a clinical need to obtain a record of some aspect of
the patient's appearance such as skin condition or to record output from a device (e.g. digital
stethoscope), or check medication guidelines. It may also be necessary to record case notes and
exchange these or to confirm via text drug types and dosage information. These tasks are
unlikely to be possible using existing systems already in most clinician's offices. There are two
other key considerations; being able to video consult with multiple parties are the same time
(multi-point conferences); and the ability to ‘see and book’ participants (presence capability).
Technical Standards
Video consultation using video conferencing, in simple terms, involves bi-directional,
synchronous, real-time communication of video and audio (and possibly other data) streams
between two or more parties. 3 The industry battle between open and propriety standards is
without a victor and what Australia finally ends up with will, in the main, be as an outcome of
larger multinational interests. Key issues relate to interoperability between different video
systems, standards around quality of service specific for health and the ability to ‘plug and play’
different input devices at any of the end points in use. As part of this effort, the Continua Health
Alliance was developed and has since begun distributing design guidelines (the Continua Health
Alliance Version One Design Guidelines) to its nearly 200 member organizations (which include
industry bellwethers such as Intel, Medtronic, Baxter, Qualcomm, Nokia, IBM, GE, and
Novartis). These organizations have integrated the Continua design protocols into their devices,
and the alliance recently has begun to certify devices built under these standards.
Listed below are our recommendations based on the current environment in Australia. These
align with those detailed in Guidance on Security, Privacy and Technical Specifications for
Clinicians, Draft for Consultation 31 August 2011 by DoHA.
Recommendation 5
- H.323 Videoconferencing and/or SIP Videoconferencing
- For interoperability between videoconferencing devices.

                                                                                                                       
3
 DoHA,  Telehealth  Technical  Standards  Position  Paper,  Draft  for  Consultation  31  August  2011  
 

ANCCEH   Page  12  

 
 o H.225 – Call Signalling, Registration, Admission and Status (RAS) H.245 – Control
Signalling RTP/RTCP – Transmission of audio and video traffic H.460 – Firewall
traversal. H.239 – dual stream video conferencing capability
o Video Codecs H.261, H.263, H.263+, H.263 Interlaced, and H.264
o Audio Codecs G.711, G.722, G.722.1, G.728, G.729 including Annex A and B,
G.723.1, G.722.1 (Annex C), AAC-LD, and AAC-LC

- Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)

- Secure Real-Time Transport Protocol (SRTP) for SIP encryption

Conclusion
“The question around telehealth is not whether, but how and at what paceiv.”
Telehealth is not a single, uniform type of technology; rather it is a targeted approach appropriate
to the individual’s needs, combining process, organisational and responsibility changes
supported by monitoring and collaboration technologies. It requires:
- Clinical leadership
- Policy alignment
- Abandonment of the pilot approach
- Change management
As in all areas of e-health change management, there is a demand for clear, concise
communication, education and targeted change management for telehealth. This could be
addressed through the development of a specific change and adoption program that aims to
achieve a critical mass of clinical champions and develops material for those practices and
hospitals that are integrating telehealth into their daily work. This approach would address the
gaps around health systems and usability of telehealth.
The usability of telehealth applications should be a key focus of action in this area. The
commitment by NBN Co to the establishment of telehealth sites provides an opportunity to
integrate a program of continuous improvement and learning into the telehealth rollout. This
could be addressed through the formal establishment of a program of evaluation, measurement
and reporting, as well as the funding of other innovative research into telehealth. This would
address the gaps around innovation capture. New investments in the system should also be
evaluated and monitored for effectiveness
We emphasise the fact that telehealth itself is less of a technical issue than it is a clinical
workflow issue, especially in primary care environments. The current discussion often focuses
on the rural-to-urban use of telehealth. We suggest that is less importance than the use of
telehealth to break down the divide between general practitioners, allied health, specialists and
the acute sector. Telehealth is fundamentally about enhancing team based care, collaboration
and patient access.
There is no national governance body for the deployment and development of telehealth from a
national perspective. We would argue that such a body should exist and look forward to
tripartite participation from national government, private health and private industry.

ANCCEH   Page  13  

 
Appendix: Background
About The ANCCeH
The Australian National Consultative Committee on Electronic Health (ANCCeH) is a
powerful group of business, government and academia interests which contribute to the
debate regarding public and private health provision in Australia. The Committee seeks to
explore, define and promote improved patient and health system outcomes through the
application of information technology. The group also provides a forum for the creation of
public-private partnerships to promote industry development and improve efficiency, safety
and productivity.
ANCCeH was created as a result of the GAP Forum on Better Health Care Through Electronic
Information organised by Global Access Partners (GAP) in Sydney in September 2004.
Cross-jurisdictional and bi-partisan by nature, the Committee engages in extensive stakeholder
consultation, prepares policy submissions and reports, initiates projects and, in association with
GAP, hosts major national conferences.
The ANCCeH’s member organisations are, in alphabetical order:
• Australian Centre for Health Research
• Bupa Australia
• Care Innovations
• Citrix Systems
• Global Access Partners
• Health Informatics Society of Australia
• HP Enterprise Services
• IBM
• Information Integrity Solutions
• Integrated Wireless
• Medibank Private
• Michael Gill & Associates Pty Ltd
• Microsoft
• National e-Health Transition Authority
• Pharmacy Guild of Australia
• Precedence Health Care
• Southern Pacific Consulting Group
• TCG Group
• Telstra Business

GAP
GAP is a proactive and influential network that initiates high-level discussions at the cutting
edge of the most pressing commercial, social and global issues of today. Through conferences,
missions, advisory boards and the online think tank, Open Forum, it facilitates real and lasting
change for our stakeholders, partners and delegates, sharing knowledge, forging progress and
creating input for Government policy.

ANCCEH   Page  14  

 
GAP promotes Australia's capacity to find novel solutions to the challenges facing the global
community, and translates these innovative solutions into business opportunities. It focuses on
practical economic outcomes for government and business, and offer a landmark opportunity for
those involved in the GAP process to discuss Australia's future in a high level environment.
www.globalaccesspartners.org/about.html

ANCCeH Subcommittee members and co-authors:

Dr. David Dembo, Asia & Pacific - Business Development Executive - Microsoft Health
Solutions Group
Mr. Michael Gill, Committee Chair and CEO of Michael Gill and Associates Pty Ltd
Dr. Stan Goldstein, Head of Clinical Advisory, BUPA
Ms. Megan Kennedy, Health Industry Lead - Software Solutions, IBM
Mr. Robert Lippiatt, Chairman, RSL Care Limited and Executive Director of Southern Pacific
Consulting Group
Dr. John Zelcer, Head of Strategy, NeHTA

                                                                                                                       
i
 Collaboration  devices  include  video  conferencing  and  telephony  devices,  such  as  smartphones.  Medical  telemetry  
devices  include  stethoscopes,  diagnostic  cameras,  EKG  devices  and  so  on.  Physical  form  factors  may  range  from  
fixed  kiosk  or  cubicle  like  arrangements,  movable  configurations  similar  to  an  IV  pole,  or  vehicular  units  or  mobile  
tablets.  
ii
 Canada  Health  Infoway,  Telehealth  Benefits  and  Adoption-­‐Connecting  People  and  Providers  Across  Canada,  May  
2011,  page  10.  
iii
 Cisco  Systems,  IBSG,  Ascension  Health  Care-­‐at-­‐a-­‐Distance  Strategy,  May  2011  
iv
 John  Cruickshank,  Health  Care  Without  Walls,  November  2010  

ANCCEH   Page  15