Remote Medical Consultations
Telephone/Radio
RFDS medical officers provide a 24 hour remote telehealth consultation service to people living, working and travelling throughout Australia.
Consultations are conducted from Bases and occur predominately by telephone and less so by HF radio. Some experimentation has taken place utilising videoconferencing with potential for further development in the future.
Advice is given to consumers, rural doctors, remote area nurses and Indigenous health workers.
Consulting from a distance is a challenging task and requires a high degree of medical skill and excellent communications on the part of the medical officer.
Remote consultations
Where once Alfred Traeger’s pedal radio solved the vital need for communication between remote properties and the Flying Doctor, almost all remote consultations are now conducted over the phone.
24 hours a day, seven days a week RFDS medical officers provide a telehealth consultation service to people living, working and travelling throughout rural and remote Australia.
Consultations are conducted from Bases and occur predominately by telephone and less so by HF radio. Some experimentation has taken place utilizing videoconferencing with potential for further development in the future.
Advice is given to consumers, rural doctors, remote area nurses and Indigenous health workers.
Diagnosis: where does it hurt?
Consulting from a distance is a challenging task and requires a high degree of medical skill and excellent communications on the part of the medical officer and our doctors are well equipped for this challenge.
In the past, with the help of our Where does it hurt? body chart, patients in isolated areas who had a medical chest (provided by the RFDS) were able to explain their medical condition with greater clarity and precision to the consulting doctor. Our doctors were then able to prescribe the necessary medicine needed for the patient from the medical chest. This is still the case today in many situations.