The Northern Rivers University Department of Rural Health
www.nrudrh.edu.au

NRUDRH is a Department of Health and Aging funded organisation jointly operated by the University of Sydney and Southern Cross University in collaboration with the North Coast Area Health Service. Their primary objectives are to support and increase healthy workforce recruitment and retention within the north coast region and to provide leadership for quality research into rural health issues. To achieve this NRUDRH has built a number of networks that require quality communication facilities. Restricted communications are now proving to be a major factor affecting expan­sion and growth.

With the implementation of the National Broadband Network, the advantages envis­aged by the NRUDRH include:

Medical Education:

• High definition video conferencing and video training systems to provide high quality medical education including;
• Live medical procedure viewing for medical students and clinicians;
• Internet streaming of RHEF and other educational material in high definition;
• 100 Mb internet infrastructures give the ability for rural and remote areas to participate in training and seminars at the same level as their city counterparts via video conference;
• Increase bandwidth will reduce transmission latency which will enhance video conferencing experiences, especially medical tutorials and lectures, and;
• Greater bandwidth will allow for linkages to numerous rural sites using different networks to provide presentation of educational seminars and meetings simultaneously from one site to multiple.

Medical procedures and consultations:

• Ability for rural practitioners to consult via video with medical specialists on individual cases with remote parties being able to view procedure in real time;
• Live medical procedure viewing for medical students and clinicians;
• Internet streaming of RHEF and other educational material in high definition;
• 100 Mb internet infrastructures give the ability for rural and remote areas to participate in training and seminars at the same level as their city counterparts via video conference;
• Increase bandwidth will reduce transmission latency which will enhance video conferencing experiences, especially medical tutorials and lectures, and;
• Greater bandwidth will allow for linkages to numerous rural sites using different networks to provide presentation of educational seminars and meetings simultaneously from one site to multiple.

Communications:

• Opportunity to consolidate the use of VOIP (SIP protocols) in voice telecoms and move away from Telstra owned copper infrastructure;
• Video desktop communications will provide face to face communications in real time from your desk;
• Increased bandwidth allows NRUDRH to have access to a large variety of technical systems hosted at our partner Universities. Currently we are unable to access research data archives, educational material, email and file servers, and;
• Email and internet usage will be brought to a new level in Australia where larger files may be transmitted and received. We currently have a major issue in the size of files we email and have to look at alternative ways of transmitted the data such as FTP or post DVD/CD.

Occupational Health and Safety:

• With the improvement of internet bandwidth the use of video conferencing technology can limit the need for staff to travel to attend meetings, training sessions and presentations within our region of 50,000 sq km. This will provide savings on travel time, accommodation and fatigue, bringing significant savings in salaries and subsequent increases in productivity.