Aged care workers and clinicians to get telehealth training

WESTERN Victoria Primary Health Network (WVPHN) has joined with a consortium of 15 PHNs across Australia to launch the Residential Aged Care Telehealth Training Program.

For Residential Aged Care Home (RACH) residents, telehealth – the provision of medical services using videoconferencing – has several benefits.

These include reducing the need for unwell or frail residents to leave their homes, saving clinicians travel time, and allowing access to specialists unavailable locally.

WVPHN chief executive officer Craig Wilding said the training program consists of a series of comprehensive online training modules designed to support telehealth in residential aged care.

“We are excited about this training, it uses the latest education learning and technology to support professionals working in RACHs, from personal care workers to nurses, managers, onsite clinicians and other health professionals

“Two learning streams have been developed to recognise the unique educational needs of both RACH staff and health clinicians who are providing services to residents.”

James Stack, the managing director of Obvious Choice, which created the program, said the training was made up of a series of short digital learning modules, with an optional up-front diagnostic to help learners decide which modules to complete.

“Modules are about six minutes long, so they can easily fit around busy schedules. Each module provides practical advice, a checklist and resources to help apply learning quickly. Videos with plain-language closed captions help make the materials more accessible.

“Microlearning is an ideal way for aged care providers to give staff ongoing professional development in topics such as telehealth.

“Evaluation data from nurses across other telehealth training programs indicate a strong end-user preference for this format.”

Nurses and GPs can claim CPD points for completing the training, with the program fully accredited through the Royal Australian College of GPs, the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine and the Australian College of Nursing.

The training program is being made available free of charge Australia-wide to all federally-funded RACHs and to clinicians who provide telehealth to residents in aged care.

It is expected the training will be provided to learners at no cost, so that all workers who support residents have access to accredited, consistent telehealth training.

Organisations wanting to implement the training can head to resiagedcaretelehealth.training