Goulburn Valley Health, a regional healthcare provider in the state of Victoria, has tapped telemedicine service My Emergency Doctor for additional virtual emergency doctor support.

Under this arrangement, senior specialist physicians from My Emergency Doctor will conduct board rounds during the overnight period, maintaining "efficient" patient management.

Established in 2016, My Emergency Doctor has been providing acute care after hours via video and phone across regional Australia. It has established partnerships with over 40 healthcare services, including ambulances, primary health networks, residential aged care facilities, hospitals, urgent care centres and multi-purpose centres. 

Emergency doctors from the company are fellows of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine. 

WHY IT MATTERS

According to Donna Sherringham, executive director of Clinical Operations at GV Health, this partnership will enhance access to emergency health care for the community – the healthcare provider covers Shepparton, Rushworth and Tatura. 

Also, the additional service lends support to their onsite emergency department doctors and nurses.

My Emergency Doctor founder Dr Justin Bowra said under its virtual service, its specialists are supervising and supporting junior doctors and nurses to "enhance patient care and emergency department workflows".

"The board round service is critical in busy hospital emergency departments. We’re proud to assist in this important function with GV Health to help doctors and health services," he said.

THE LARGER TREND

Last year, the Western Victoria Primary Health Network invested almost a quarter of a million Australian dollars to introduce telehealth services to prevent the spread of COVID-19 at aged care homes across the region. The network had also engaged the services of My Emergency Doctor for this project, which ended in May this year.

In other news, the public health services under the Gippsland Health Alliance, also from Victoria, have recently rolled out Allscripts' EMR platform across their emergency department facilities. The Sunrise EMR system is a single-platform acute and ambulatory solution that delivers the most current information to clinicians at point-of-care.