BEYOND2020 | health innovations

Welcome to Beyond 2020 | health innovations, which is now being delivered as our inaugural virtual conference. 

The world has changed immeasurably since we were initially planning this conference.  What has been highlighted over the past few months has been how technology can support the delivery of effective healthcare. The rapid uptake of video conferencing has seen significant reform and adaptation delivered in a matter of weeks. 

Fortunately, Western Australia already had a robust telehealth network in place, thanks to WA Country Health Service driving innovation in this space over the past few years with the globe-leading Emergency Telehealth Service and Statewide Telehealth Network. This has meant patients in rural and remote communities can still access vital healthcare while regional borders remain in place. 

What is proving to be critical for success in both these developing innovations and tackling challenges is strong leadership, collaboration and communication; not just from organisations, but also individuals. As health professionals, rural communities look to you in times of crisis and uncertainty. 

Our new future presents many opportunities and challenges. It is up to us all what how we choose to respond to these.
Thank you all for supporting us. I hope that you enjoy this delivery format and join us again next year.

Tim Shackleton
Chief Executive Officer, Rural Health West

I am pleased to welcome you to the WA Rural Health Conference 2020 - Going Virtual.

This year’s conference theme – Beyond 2020 | health innovations really resonates with WA Country Health Service’s (WACHS) focus on harnessing innovation and technological advancements to deliver high quality, sustainable healthcare to country communities into the future.

Rapidly changing technology has created new opportunities to drastically improve healthcare and leveraging these opportunities is particularly important in the context of rural and regional WA, where we know inequity of service access contributes to poorer health outcomes.

Western Australia’s regional health landscape is changing thanks to the advancements in digitally enabled health services. Telehealth, for example, enables skilled, on-the-ground clinicians to deliver care with the support of specialists in the metropolitan area. Embracing this, WACHS recently established its own Command Centre whereby local country clinicians are supported 24/7 by specialist clinicians to help better coordinate patient care via virtual technologies.

Partnerships are critical to maintaining a sustainable health system that strives to ensure all country Western Australians are able to access equitable health services. WACHS is once again proud to partner with Rural Health West to deliver this conference through the Better Medical Care Initiative, which supports medical practitioners access training, support, and professional mentoring to ensure they, and their families, are well supported to live and work across country Western Australia.

Implementing new and innovation-driven digital technologies will create a more efficient and sustainable health system to ensure rural healthcare is sustainable for the health and wellbeing of our country communities now and into the future.

Your participation in this conference, and your commitment to knowledge sharing and professional development, will contribute to Western Australia leading the way with innovative and sustainable healthcare for future generations.

Thank you for participating, thank you for your contribution to healthcare in country WA and enjoy the conference.

WA Country Health Service Chief Executive, Jeff Moffet

Diabetes WA works alongside regional health professionals to support patients living with diabetes. 

During the session you will hear an update on a range of free services available to your patients and new innovative services in light of COVID-19.  Hear from and interact with our CDE nurse practitioner and CDE pharmacist who will each present a clinical case study from the diabetes telehealth service involving local GPs, regional health services and connection with tertiary/specialist services.

My webinar describes work PathWest and UWA have done recently to bring molecular diagnostic methods to regional WA. Examples include sepsis, meningitis, arbovirus detection and most recently COVID-19. I discuss the challenges of operating and sustaining rapid molecular diagnostic tests, and argue that improved access to these methods close to the point of care are necessary improvements to the quality and safety of health care in regional WA.

Cancer patients in remote and rural areas unfortunately have poorer outcomes due to access to timely diagnosis and treatment. The WACHS cancer plan 2017-2022 aims to improve cancer outcomes through innovative ways to provide cancer care such as TeleOncology, TeleLymphoedema and Teletrials. This Webinar aims to outline the barriers to regional cancer care and the current services available to improve cancer outcomes.

This webinar covers common presentations involved the ear, nose and throat. 

• Tips on what to look for in history and examination
• Describes management and when to refer for specialist care
• Highlights rare but serious complications of common conditions

This webinar speaks to the topic of common skin diseases and focuses on clinical diagnostic signs, diagnosis and management.

 Associate Professor Angus Turner discusses telehealth models and advances, particularly for the eye in artificial intelligence.

Assoc. Professor Turner provides practical tips for GPs, diabetic screening, cameras and the various artificial intelligence tools becoming available. 

Hunting for boab nuts, vaccinating cattle and installing fence posts are not activities you would typically expect to see on the curriculum of a medical degree; however they form an important part of The University of Notre Dame's Kimberley Remote Area Health Placement Program.

For ten days each year, second year medical students from the university live and work alongside Kimberley people in family-owned and community organisations such as cattle stations, schools, radio stations, local shires and small business to gain an appreciation of the lives of people in remote communities. 

Founded in 2006 by Professor Donna Mak, the program gives the students an opportunity to engage with and learn from local people to inform the care they provide once they start to practise. 

This webinar gives an update on antibiotic allergies in children. The talk introduces the basic immunological principles behind the different types of allergic reactions and explains "danger signs" of severe allergy. It also details the current diagnostic pathways and management of these allergic reactions, with particular focus on penicillin and cephalosporin allergies.

This webinar describes recent revelations that the modern approach to Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) was fundamentally incorrect resulting in a gross overestimation of the accuracy of published findings - put simply we thought that most published findings were true but they have turned out to be false.

The webinar describes the reasons for this including an underestimation of the effect of bias on the accuracy of published outcomes and a completely incorrect interpretation of the p-value that has now been drastically corrected by the American Statistical Association. A path forward showing clinicians how to interpret evidence in then new world of EBM 2.0 is charted. This webinar will change the way you interpret EBM forever! "

Dr Anand Senthi is a dual trained Specialist Emergency Physician and General Practitioner, working as a Consultant in Emergency Medicine in Western Australia. He has a diversity of interests and backgrounds including a period in finance, holding a Masters of Applied Finance. Anand’s main passion is education where he is extensively involved in the medical education of all levels of practitioner in Emergency Medicine and General Practice in both city and regional environments and holds an appointment as Clinical Senior Lecturer at the University of Western Australia.  He created the website EDguidelines.com to provide free and easy access to doctors working in acute care environments (e.g GP and ED) to quality guidelines and resources. Anand also has a strong interest in Evidence Based Medicine, starting the EBM2point0.com project to fundamentally change the way clinicians interpret EBM. 

This presentation will cover:

• Modern radiation therapy – the significant advances in treatment techniques
• The place of radiation therapy in the treatment of non-melanoma skin cancers when surgery is not feasible
• Radiation therapy as a treatment option for wide-field skin cancerisation
• Radiation therapy as an adjunct to surgery

Visit GenesisCare website 

Irritability in infants is extremely common. First time parents are more vulnerable so  parental support should be explored and arranged if they don't have much support.

Dr Jehangir will discuss the following topics:
- Milk intolerance especially cows milk protein intolerance is more common than perceived in community.
- Gastroesophageal reflux and colic are generally benign and improve with time.
- Surgical causes of vomiting such as pyloric stenosis should not be missed.
- The need to refer to a paediatrician if any doubt.

Mappa is revolutionary technology providing a custom-made platform for the WA health sector that will be available from 30 June 2020. Mappa provides comprehensive, culturally appropriate and reliable information for WA health services, patients and their communities. The map shows health services in metro, regional and remote areas including their facilities; and visiting specialists and allied health professionals; and mobile bus clinics (location, dates, how to book and more).

Mappa is designed to help (i) Aboriginal peoples; (ii) Health Professionals; and (iii) the public that live, work or travel. The service information (data) displayed on Mappa website is all publically available information – there are no private details nor patient data.

Mappa aims to remove the systemic barriers to enable Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people to receive adequate healthcare closer to home, with family and on country where possible.

Mappa helps clinicians across the Health Sector to integrate and communicate in order to coordinate a safer, more responsible ‘patient journey’, improving quality of life and ensure they receive optimised health care as close as possible to family, home and country. This can help patient discharges be safer, faster and more efficient.

Presenter Maddelene Doyle is the Mappa Support Officer at the Aboriginal Health Council of Western Australia (AHCWA). Maddelene is a Wiradjuri women from Central West New South Wales. Maddelene’s first introduction to Aboriginal Health was as a Dental Nurse at Danila Dilba Health Service in the Northern Territory, thereafter she progressed her career in the industry in roles such as Medical Receptionist and Corporate Administration Officer. Having recently relocated to Perth, Maddelene was excited to join AHCWA and continue working in an area she is passionate about - the Aboriginal Health sector – and contribute to improving the accessibility of health services for Aboriginal.

Further information on Mappa can be found at https://mappanews.org.au/

 

Many aspects of cardiology disease has an inherited component.

This webinar uses three cases to exemplify some key aspects of:

• Inherited Cardiomyopathy
• Inherited Arrhythmia
• Familial Hypercholesterolaemia

Their impact on the patient as well as key points to follow up with screening relatives

Currently one in seven Australians suffer with some level of hearing loss. Hearing loss is highly prevalent among older adults and is often associated with a decline in cognitive function, physical function and mental health. The broader implications of hearing loss are increasingly surfacing in epidemiological studies. These studies are showing hearing loss is independently associated with many other health conditions like:

• Cognitive impairment
• Dementia
• Cardiovascular disease
• Falls
• Diabetes
• Depression
• Loneliness
• Social isolation
• Anxiety
• Mortality

Despite these strong associations, hearing loss in the older population often goes untreated and generally receives little clinical emphasis in primary care practices according to several studies. Hearing loss is considered a hidden disease and often goes unnoticed for many years which can have significant long term effects on health.
As health care professionals we need to shift our mindset in the treatment of hearing loss to a preventive or interventional model of care rather than a reactive model of care we currently adopt when a patient identifies a hearing loss. Given the emerging research regarding hearing loss and its association to many conditions we can no longer treat hearing as an isolated sensory disorder. There is simply too much evidence in this area to ignore hearing loss and its effect on health. It's time we maximised the information we have in order to benefit patients' overall wellbeing and focus on prevention, early detection, and evidence-based treatment.

The presentation focuses on the above as well as how we can work together to take a interventional or preventive model of care when treating hearing loss. It also dives deeper into four area: falls, diabetes, dementia and cardiovascular diseases.

Paul works for Peer Based Harm Reduction WA, a not-for-profit NGO that provides peer-education, harm reduction, and health treatment services for people who use illicit drugs.

Paul currently coordinates Peer Based Harm Reduction WA’s Outreach Team, which delivers; mobile NSEP and other harm reduction services in the community; Overdose Prevention and Management (OPAM) Peer-education Project and WA Peer-administered Naloxone Program; Hepatitis C Treatment Case Management Service; Hep C PHRE peer education project, and the Stirling Empowerment Project ‘CaLD team’. He also provides consultancy, training, and education to other agencies, and guest-lectures to several universities. 

Paul has worked at Peer Based Harm Reduction WA for more than 20 years. Paul has also worked as a Drug and Alcohol Officer for the State-wide Specialist Aboriginal Mental Health Service; as an educator and consultant for the Transnational Institute (in China and Myanmar); and as a trainer for the Burnet Institute for Public Health.

In 2002 Paul was awarded an Alcohol & Drug Council of Australia (ADCA) Australia Day Medal. 

For the past three years, we've partnered with Curtin University Faculty of Health Sciences and The University of Notre Dame, School of Medicine Fremantle to visit nine Wheatbelt towns - Bruce Rock, Corrigin, Cunderdin, Kellerberrin, Merredin, Moora, Narrogin, Southern Cross and Westonia to immerse medical students in country life across the Wheatbelt. 

The aim is to influence the medical students to consider a rural health career in the future. It is rewarding to have many students express their interest in attending the Rural Clinical School and their openness to explore rural career opportunities following their Wheatbelt immersion experience.

Take a look at how the students feel about their immersion experience.

Healthy ears in children are necessary to acquire age appropriate speech and language and is vital for education and employment outcomes. Otitis media (OM) is infection of the middle ear, and Chronic Suppurative OM (CSOM), chronic inflammation – both a cause of acquired hearing impairment.

Earbus Foundation of Western Australia (Earbus) partners with schools, daycares, kindergartens and playgroups to ensure Aboriginal children have access to ear health services and can hear what is taught in classrooms. Earbus has delivered statewide mobile ear health clinics offering comprehensive ear screening, GPs, Audiologists and ENT specialists. Since 2014 Earbus has collated over 25,000 ear screening results. Our data includes results from otoscopy, tympanometry, audiology, OM and CSOM rates, and number of consults (including GP and ENT appointments) in over 70 WA sites in the Kimberley, Pilbara, Goldfields, Metropolitan, South West and Esperance regions. The trends and recommendations from this data will be presented.

Mark down 27-28 March 2021 as the dates for next year's WA Rural Health Conference. Believe it or not - the conference theme was confirmed before COVID-19 reached pandemic status. 

More information will be shared about the conference in coming months. 

WA Rural Health Conference | Pan Pacific Perth | Saturday 27 March to Sunday 28 March 2021

Rural and Remote Retrieval Weekend | Karijini National Park | Thursday 13 May to Sunday 16 May 2021

Rural Anaesthetists Down Under | Cable Beach Club Broome | Sunday 13 June to Wednesday 16 June 2021