The Royal District Nursing Service (RDNS) is using high-speed broadband technology to enable nurses to monitor the medicine intake of elderly patients living independently. 

The groundbreaking home-based video conferencing facilities will be developed and tested by RDNS, together with Latrobe University in the evaluation and assessment stages, in cooperation with 50 clients in Victoria and clinical nurses in key positions.

One out of 12 related projects, the telehealth trial is funded under Victoria state’s $4 million Broadband-Enabled Innovation Program, which is aimed at promoting broadband use to help modernise healthcare access among rural and regional clients. 

The RDNS, established in 1885, has been leading the usage of mobile computer technology in Australia.

Chief executive officer Steve Muggleton said RDNS’s goal is to estimate how suitable, apt and limited videoconferencing is as a technology, to see how it can be used to better manage medicine intake among the target subjects. The project has the possibility of improving significantly clients’ satisfaction in terms of care requirements, he said. 

The largest provider of home nursing services in Australia, RDNS operates independently as a non-profit charity agency, offering professional healthcare and nursing to up to 9,000 customers throughout Melbourne, portions of Victoria, and New South Wales as well as in Auckland, New Zealand.

RDNS also employs Australia’s largest number of district nurses, who number more than 1,200 (as registered nurses) among a staff of 1,600. These nurses traverse around eight million kilometres, translating to about 1.5 million visits to an estimated 35,000 people, largely in their own domiciles.