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From: Chris Lewis
Date: 15 Oct 2006
Time: 22:10:13 -0500
Remote Name: 211.29.214.33
Hi B. Kao, Thankyou for your interest and questions. It's great to hear about situations such as in your home state where telehealth may provide improved access and equity in service delivery. There have been studies in Australia that have investigated the access and use of IT&T by rural and remote families. Please let me know if you would like details of these studies. Although high-tech delivery of telehealth (ie. videoconferencing)is arguably the most desirable option, as it of course provides for visual and auditory information, it has been found that the current infrastructure in Australia is inadequate to support this, and the majority of families do not have access to the technology. Hence our telehealth adaptation of the Lidcombe Program has so far been based on low-tech telehealth in order to improve the access of isolated families. Although contact with parents has been by telephone, email has been used as an adjunct with those families who have Internet access. It is hoped that access to and reliability of more high-tech applications, such as you suggest with the use of laptops with video technology, will continue to improve, and we intend to investigate high-tech applications of telehealth Lidcombe Program in the near future. Thanks again for your comments and questions, Chris.