Dr Anthony Smith is passionate about delivering the best possible paediatric care to children in regional Australia.  He has taken the lead on projects such as Roy the Robot, telepediatrics and tele-ENT services.  He will discuss the interface between research and service delivery and talk about innovations that are already happening in Australia.

Anthony has made a significant contribution to the literature on telepaediatrics. His PhD study has led to the development of a successful telepaediatric service for regional hospitals in Queensland. Specific research interests include the evaluation of feasibility, cost-effectiveness and diagnostic accuracy of online health applications.  Previously, Dr Smith has had over ten years’ clinical experience as a Registered Nurse specialising in paediatrics and child health.

Peter is an emergency physician and health informatician.  He has joined joined the National eHealth Transition Authority (NEHTA) on secondment from the Western Australian Department of Health to lead the NEHTA Benefits Realisation Study, for investment in national e-Health services.  In this work Peter will be drawing on his experience as a former Harkness Fellow (Harvard Medical School) modelling the benefits of improved health information exchange interoperability for Australia.  Peter is also an internationally respected expert on patient flow in acute care settings and active patient safety researcher.  Peter continues to work clinical sessions at Fremantle Hospital Emergency Department, WA.

George started his role at Intel in November 2005. For him it was an opportunity to take an active role in changing the way healthcare was delivered in Australia. Prior to moving to Intel Australia he has been very active in the healthcare informatics arena as the CIO of a private hospital group in Sydney, manager of an innovative software development group developing solutions for healthcare providers and consumers, and board member at the state and national level of the Health Informatics Society of Australia.

He is a registered medical practitioner having graduated from the University of Sydney. He is also a registered optometrist and holds a graduate degree in E-Business from the University of Southern Queensland. He ran a successful software company during the heady days of the late 80’s and early 90’s and has been an active computer enthusiast from the late 70’s when he acquired his first PC, a Sinclair Z80.

Robin Harvey, PhD
Research and Development Manager
Sentiens Pty Ltd

Robin was appointed Research and Development Manager for Sentiens in November, 2005. She is a Registered Psychologist who has specialized in the areas of developmental and educational psychology.  She has had appointments as a Research Associate and Acting Director of the Child Study Centre in the School of Psychology at the University of Western Australia with her work encompassing academic teaching, clinical practice and research.  She is currently appointed as an external research associate at UWA. She continues to work collaboratively with researchers from all major Western Australian Universities on a range of mental health projects. Robin has a commitment to the development of evidence-based practice in the area of mental health and is keen that systems are developed so that appropriate services are available no matter where people live.

Fred Pearce, University of Alaska Anchorage
Professor of Telecommunication,
Director of the Applied Sciences Laboratory
Chair of the Department of Journalism
and Public Communication

Prof Pearce has an extensive background in broadband telecommunications and information technologies.  He has worked in the television industry and developed applications and content for distributed learning systems.  Since 1994, he has been developing, deploying, and evaluating narrow bandwidth telemedicine and telehealth applications and technologies for Alaska, rural America, and the emerging world.

Prof Pearce was the Director of the Alaska Telemedicine Project (1994-2000) and Principle Investigator of the “Alaska Telemedicine Testbed Project” (1996 – 2001) funded by the National Library of Medicine. 

Prof Pearce developed the “Alaska Telehealth System” used for remote clinical decision support, and the “Alaska Telemedicine Workstation,” which is being used to deliver clinical medical support throughout Alaska and the Russian Far East.  Dr. Pearce is currently the Principal Investigator of the “Alaska Medical Informatics Initiative” (AMII).  Funded by the U. S. Department of Defense, AMII is a set of “internet medical tools” designed for emergency medical evacuations and clinical decision support for rural and frontier healthcare in the “digital age.”

Professor Pearce’s system uses satellite phone communications technology which allows for biomedical data, voice, video and text transmission from the patient to the required care centre. It also has the capability to connect to multiple sites at the same time giving the regional hospital and the tertiary referral centre access to the same information simultaneously allowing for good clinical decisions to be made regarding the patient’s condition.  The communication module automatically seeks the best available bandwidth. As a back up, the field unit stores all of the patient data in case the communication link is temporarily lost during transport and when it finds the connection again sends the patient monitoring data automatically. The system has been tried in the United States very successfully.

Prof Nick Santamaria
Chair of Acute & Ambulatory Care
Curtin University of Technology

Nick Santamaria is the Professor of Acute & Ambulatory Care at Curtin University and Senior Clinical Research Fellow at Royal Perth Hospital.  He is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne and a Senior Research Fellow with the Bendigo Health Care Group in Victoria.

Nick designed and developed the Alfred/Medseed Wound Imaging System (AMWIS) in 1999 and he conducted a national clinical trial of the AMWIS system in 32 hospitals across Australian during 2000. Following the development of the AMWIS System Nick, in collaboration with colleagues, undertook a randomised controlled trial of the clinical effectiveness of AMWIS as a telemedicine application for the remote management of diabetic wounds in the Kimberley region of WA.  This study demonstrated that remote expert consultation using telemedicine technology resulted in a significant reduction in lower limb amputation rates and large cost reductions.

AMWIS was subsequently awarded the Baxter/AHA National Healthcare Innovation Award in 2002 and is being used by many wound care clinicians around Australia.  In 2005 Nick lead the PRIME research group in a national pressure ulcer study involving 3500 patients where they demonstrated that pressure ulcer prevalence can by reduced by more than 40% in nursing home residents when an integrated management system which includes digital imaging is implemented

He is the chief investigator for a number of federally funded disease management clinical trials in Melbourne and is also involved in the establishment of the Disease Management Association of Australia, he is on the editorial boards of a number of national and international journals and has published and presented his research in Asia, USA and Japan. 

Nick will be the Master of Ceremonies for the Rural eHealth Forum.  He will also present on wound care management in the Chat Room devoted to putting technology in the hands of rural clinicians.