White Cloud Foundation Founder and Chairman Professor Adam Scott has taken home the prize of Best Technology (Digital Health m- Health and Coronary Artery Disease) at the European Society of Cardiology.
Prof Scott is also the Director of Cardiac Sciences at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital. It was here he established the world first tele-cardiac investigation program which won him the international prize, now operating in 19 hospitals across Queensland.
The program has resulted in significant improvements for Queenslanders accessing care in rural locations, delivering global-leading and lifesaving outcomes in the 2.5 years it has been in operation.
Prof Scott said the tele-health program had already reduced procedure waiting times from 37 days to same day access, and had resulted in a 91 per cent increase in patients no longer having to travel past their local health facility to undergo vital cardiac investigations.
“These numbers mean more patients are getting the right care, closer to home, sooner,” Prof Scott said.
“Importantly, we have also reduced the round-trip travel per patient by an average of 502km, that’s a total saving per year of just over 202,000km.
“That’s just about five times around the world!
“We’ve also increased testing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders by two-fold – that’s so incredibly important and something I am so proud of.”
The technology not only earned his team recognition, but interest from Sweden, Canada and China, who all experience the same issue with service delivery and decentralisation.
Prof Scott said the recognition by the ESC was a great reflection of all the hard work that had been put into the program.
“All of our colleagues at each regional/rural and remote site have put in a lot of hard work to provide the highest quality service provision to their patients and for displaying a willingness to adapt to new service delivery models to enable this care,” Prof Scott said.
“Our focus is to close the urban-rural disparity and provide same day access and reporting to all Queenslanders, regardless of their geographic location.
“This program can be replicated very easily, thereby enabling other countries to provide the same level of care and services.
“In the future, we’d like to see programs like this replicated by other health disciplines to enable rural and remote areas of Queensland to get the support they need at the time they need it.”