CiLN Advisory Panel update – April 2020

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Ruth Large is CiLN co-chair, chair of the National Telehealth Leadership Group and Waikato DHB clinical director of information services and virtual healthcare

Kia ora e te Whānau. Welcome to the second CiLN newsletter and the first one under Covid-19 lockdown. I know many of you have made use of the CiLN network to communicate your Covid plans and issues and we all recognise that digital plays a massive role in our response to the pandemic.

I would like to start this newsletter by recognising Nathan Kershaw’s efforts in opening up a new Discourse page for a wider clinical audience to form Health Forum NZ and his ongoing work to keep Discourse well mediated.

I have dipped in and out of the Discourse conversations over this busy time and noted that common threads still prevail, but have morphed to be more Covid related, exploring issues as diverse as patient tracking through to the use of AI.

The UK forum has similarly been overwhelmed with Covid related issues, which have been ahead of ours and gives us fascinating insights on the development of the disease there and what could potentially await us.

My interest is particularly in the telehealth space and it has been a very busy few weeks for the NZ telehealth leadership group.

We have worked to obtain a waiver for the requirement to fax/physically send a prescription and also to be able to prescribe without a physical signature, which have been key barriers to the delivery of telehealth previously.

A number of conversations resulted from this piece of work including discussions on email and NZePS. You will find more information on prescription and other change at www.telehealth.org.nz as well plenty of current clinician and patient information.

A key theme prevails in all of this activity and that is of collaboration and kindness. As we move forward, continuing to share our digital experiences and ideas is going to be crucial in our fight against Covid-19.

Never before have we seen a disaster on this scale and now more than ever it will be critical to continue our networking and advocacy for shared digital tools and development.

Thanks to all of you for the work that you do and for those who may be moving into a clearer headspace now do take the opportunity to pop back into Discourse, start a new thread, join the conversation. Also, if you know a colleague who hasn’t yet joined, forward this newsletter on to show them what they’re missing out on!

We will be continuing to plan for a virtual meeting to replace our cancelled face-to-face meeting in May and look forward to seeing you all then.

If you would like to provide feedback on this news story, please contact the editor Rebecca McBeth.

Read more CiLN Advisory Panel updates:

CiLN Advisory Panel update – March 2020

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