Telephone vs video
More than 90 per cent of telehealth consultations done at DHBs during and after lockdown were done via telephone and the proportion of phone over video has increased since before Covid-19 hit. However, the number of DHBs reporting some use of video has risen significantly. Seven DHBs identified doing around 280 video consultations a week pre-Covid. In April, 12 DHBs were able to identify around 2,000 consultations a week being done via video conference. By either June, July or August 2020, all but four DHBs were able to report on telehealth consultations done via video, with an average of 870 per week. Large says it is much easier to upscale a telehealth service if you have something going in the first place and that is what we have seen in New Zealand. “So those places which were already providing little centres of excellence have been able to upscale. But because the support and infrastructure were not there, a lot of telehealth done during lockdown was over the phone.” She says reviews of patient feedback, both in New Zealand and internationally, show the majority of patients were happy to receive contact from the clinicians by any
Northern DHB identified a 20- fold increase in use of Zoom for video conferencing during the national lockdown. “With much of the groundwork completed and the majority of teams and staff who needed it already using Zoom pre-Covid, we were in a good position to scale our service rapidly to support staff shifting to remote working,” a briefing paper to the board says.
"The number of DHBs reporting some use of video has risen significantly."
form possible whilst lockdowns were in place, but they would have much preferred video.
hinz .org.nz
TELEHEALTH OCTOBER 2020 : : 8
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