By BLAKE METCALF-HOLT
FEDERATION University’s Churchill campus and the Churchill Neighbourhood Centre have launched the first of six telehealth satellite hubs for the Latrobe Valley.
The aim is to adapt to the healthcare inaccessibility problems across the region and elevate physiotherapy students’ practical learning.
The Federation Physiotherapy Virtual Care Clinic will extend its reach and give those in the community dealing with chronic conditions access to physiotherapy providers (students in training).
Located at the Churchill Neighbourhood Centre inside the Churchill Library, the telehealth hub is only a short distance for locals.
Funding for this initiative has come from the Latrobe Health Assembly to combat the growing strain on healthcare providers on-site and to address those individuals limited by transport or digital capabilities.
Professor Louisa Remedios, the head of Discipline and Physiotherapy at Federation University, believes this is “a new paradigm” for physiotherapy in Gippsland and Australia.
“Due to the challenges with access and distance issues, there’s not enough physiotherapists working in the community,” she said.
“(So), we’re able to set up a clinic where students can provide service under the supervision of excellent clinical education and we’ve been doing this for a while now.
“There were a lot of issues, a lot of barriers to wellbeing and health, and this was an opportunity to educate our students while meeting the needs of community.”
Upon extensive studies into the area, Prof. Remedios and others have discovered those suffering from chronic conditions regionally encounter fewer healthcare professionals locally or are otherwise faced with longer travel times and higher cost to get the help they need.
“Since COVID and our shift to need to do more telehealth, we understood, and there’s a lot of research now emerging with this, that telehealth is an excellent way to communicate and work with community members who have limited access, especially if you’re living regionally (and) you can’t travel as easily to see healthcare professionals,” Prof. Remedios added.
“It gives people so many opportunities (to access) healthcare in a way that’s new and there’s opportunity for our students to work from anywhere, meeting people and working with people anywhere in the world or regionally.”
Running for 43 years, the Churchill Neighbourhood Centre is continuing to introduce ways to serve its community.
“By having telehealth local to us means that, we have a lot of community members that don’t travel, so they don’t go to Morwell or Traralgon, by having it local, we actually get members that come via their electric scooters that come to our centre,” Churchill Neighbourhood Centre Manager, Nathan Brown said.
“So, by them being able to leave home just on their electric scooter and come on down, because they don’t drive and they don’t have family around them, it means that they can still access these health services and I think that’s pretty exciting.”
From conversations, it is understood that transport and digital literacy remain the two biggest factors for people not attending needed healthcare sessions.
“By having it local to us means that the transport part is ticked and with digital literacy, we are actually going to be supported by our volunteer team that will help them log in and access their services, so that will slowly move the barrier for them as well,” Mr Brown said.
From a student’s perspective, it is equally a chance for them to build experience in the industry, and develop a strong rapport with patients.
“The difference is it’s more we teach our patients how to do the assessments on themselves, so there’s a lot of assessments or hands-on treatment that, while we’re not there, we can teach them to palpate their own leg and tell us what it feels like,” physiotherapy student, Mahalia Bossom said.
“So, there’s a lot that can be reproduced in the telehealth session even though we’re not there.”
Ms Bossom said it had really helped reinforce her understanding.
“I think that if you can explain something to someone, then you’ve pretty much mastered that little technique,” she said.
“It’s been really good to challenge myself, especially on patients who are like ‘Can you explain that in a different way’, to be able to come up with new methods of how to explain it to them and give them autonomy and a choice in what they’re doing.”
The patient-base has been enthusiastic about being helped by up-and-coming physios as every five weeks it changes who they will get within the cohort.
“They’ve loved the fact they’re getting new students, like we’ve logged on and they’ve been like ‘You guys are starting. I’m so glad to be here’, they’re very aware that we swap every five weeks and I haven’t had one that’s had an issue with it and all of them are helpful to be there on our education journey and they’ll answer whatever we need and they’ll show us what we need,” Ms Bossom said.
The Latrobe Health Assembly has funded the entire project (all six satellite hubs) as a direct response to the Latrobe Valley Chronic Action Plan, addressing workforce shortages by utilising placement students, improving access to quality care across the region and upskilling the future allied health workforce.
In the pilot phase, the effectiveness of this initial Churchill hub will determine how the next hubs across Latrobe Valley are introduced over the next 12 to 18 months.
