In-Home Telemonitoring For Veterans Trial - Technology and Services

DVA is working with the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy to deliver the In-Home Telemonitoring for Veterans Trial (the Trial) using the National Broadband Network (NBN).

The Trial is an $8 million project over 4 years, which includes funding for a planning and development phase (2011-2012), an evaluation supplier, GP and practice payments, Departmental costs and service provision costs.

The Trial will assess whether telemonitoring over high quality, high speed broadband is a safe, effective and efficient complement to conventional health services, and determine the potential for NBN enabled in-home monitoring and videoconferencing to assist in achieving quality of care and improved health outcomes for veterans.

The Trial will involve Gold Card holders, including veterans, war widow/ers and their dependants with chronic conditions, in particular, congestive heart failure (CHF), coronary artery disease (CAD), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and diabetes.

The Trial will involve a cohort of around 300 veterans and a data control group (Gold Card holders with matching health condition/s, age, sex and geographic proximity to the NBN sites in the Trial) of approximately the same number of veterans.

The Trial will commence in the one Trial site initially, to provide the opportunity to test the business and clinical model, the technology, training requirements, service delivery and to ascertain any issues and/or required changes, before expanding to other sites by mid 2013.