Telepaediatrics from a Secondary Level.

Abstract

Children and adolescents who live in regional and rural areas need specialist medical services that are often not available in their area. This creates difficulty in access to specialist care for these patients because of transport availability, distance and cost. General specialists and primary care providers in regional and rural areas need professional support at a subspecialty or specialist level. Health consumers have increasing expectations of medical services, including--for rural patients--equity of access to the specialist services available in metropolitan areas. Paediatric outreach clinics have been used to address these issues and, more recently, in some areas, telepaediatric clinics have been added. This chapter describes telepaediatric consultation in a regional child and adolescent health service that offers a model of service in regional and rural settings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)