D I G I T A L D I A G N O S T I C S
Royal Far West is Australia ’ s only national charity dedicated to helping country kids with complex behavioural and mental health needs . It operates out of Manly , on Sydney ’ s Northern Beaches , as well as remotely , either via community visits or telecare .
Over 140 clinicians , and an additional 100 staff , support this critically important work .
In FY22 , Royal Far West saw 5,196 country children with complex needs across three states and there were an additional 12,706 beneficiaries – classmates and teachers – of that care . In total , they worked with 169 schools , 61 preschools and 212 communities .
Royal Far West ’ s most complex care programme , the Paediatric Development Program or PDP requires the co-ordination of multiple disciplinary clinicians ’ time . A technology issue with just one in-person or telecare appointment has a cascading impact on others .
“ If a clinician can ’ t see clients , and they often have up to five to six sessions a day or more , then these sessions are lost and you need to reschedule , which comes with complexity . It ’ s also not a great experience for the client , whether they ’ re in the building or sitting at a computer terminal in a country school and the clinician can ’ t connect because of a tech issue ,” said Royal Far West ICT Director , Thomas Pinn .
Avoiding this requires high-quality , always-on , phone-based and onsite Level 1 support for clinicians , as well as Level 2 / 3 escalation so that the internal ICT team can resolve more technical challenges .
Up until recently , neither support function worked effectively and clinician support was via a generic offshore Level 1 service desk with less than satisfactory resolutions .
Professional support and secure cloudbased systems come together seamlessly to power services that help thousands of country kids nationally every year .
Indeed , support was also only encouraged during NSW business hours , despite Royal Far West ’ s national reach . Frustrated clinicians waited for support and either sought workarounds themselves or asked Pinn and his ICT colleagues to jump in – defeating the purpose of contracting IT support out in the first place .
For more advanced questions , ICT was either routed through the same Level 1 support or had to wait for a formal meeting with the service
ROYAL FAR WEST INNOVATES IT ' S ICT SERVICES AND SUPPORT TO MEET CLINICIAN AND CLIENT NEEDS
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