Three years ago Clinical Nurse Consultant Therese Jepson and Staff Specialist Geriatrician Dr James Hardy set out on a mission to improve care for older patients in northern Sydney. 

Therese and James introduced the use of videoconferencing in the Royal North Shore Ryde service Aged Care Rapid Response team (ARRT) to treat patients in their homes. 

“Telehealth enabled us to the see the patient straight up and know immediately whether they required to come into hospital or not,” James said.

“It also allowed us to take action straight away, rather than having to jump in a car, drive to see the patient and then work out what’s going on. 

“It speeds up the time where the care can be provided to the patient and it means the patient doesn’t unnecessarily need to be transferred to hospital.”

Initially the team piloted the initiative with a few aged care facilities, but when the COVID-19 pandemic hit they were able to offer it to all aged care facilities across the district. 

Therese said there was a lot of perseverance and hard work to get the project across the line. 

“We are now seeing some of the avoidable admissions to hospital start to decrease.”

“Initially we rolled this out as a pilot to a few aged care facilities but then COVID hit, where no one could go in and provide care to these patients and the only way was to come to hospital.”

‘The ARRT of Telehealth’ project won a Northern Sydney Local Health District Quality and Improvement Local Solutions Award. 

Applications are now open for the 2022 Quality and Improvement Awards. The awards celebrate the excellence of staff and put a spotlight on the hard work and delivery of programs and services which have made a real difference to patients and their families. 

Therese and James encourage others to submit an application. 

“It’s so important to share our successes, so we can learn from one another and make sure we truly are providing the highest quality care to our patients and consumers,” James said.  

Application forms and further information can be found here or contact [email protected]