Regional and remote communities will benefit from a world-first cardiac robotic ultrasound, removing the barriers for Queenslanders to access quality cardiac care.
The new specialised remote-controlled robotic arm system is operated remotely by a sonographer to accurately investigate and safely perform diagnostic ultrasound imaging.
The collaborative robot, or COBOT, will be used on cardiac patients in Longreach and Cloncurry providing same day access and reporting of results.
The robotic ultrasound will allow patients to remain in their community and eliminate the need to travel to metropolitan hospitals.
Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital Director of Cardiac Sciences, Dr Adam Scott said the new technology will transform rural healthcare reducing rural disparity and removing barriers, giving patients the right treatment at the right time in the right location.
“Regional and remote communities have smaller populations which limits full cardiology services, with patients travelling long distances to a metropolitan location for care or waiting for an outreach team to visit their community,” Dr Scott said.
“This new, world-first robotic cardiac ultrasound enables specialists located in metropolitan areas to complete and report on remote examinations on the same-day.
“We now have the technology, the infrastructure and the IT platforms to be able to deliver this service, and a willing cohort of clinicians and staff on the ground in these rural locations who are eager to adopt this new technology, because they know if we keep doing what we've always done, we will keep getting the same result; and that's not working.
“Adopting new models of care and new technologies, we are able to deliver the care we need in the right time frame so that local treating teams can support their community."
Cardiac patients will present at their local rural health facility to be scanned, by a cardiac sonographer located at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital.
A preliminary report is created which is then confirmed by a cardiologist and returned to the local treating team.
Dr Scott said it is more important than ever to enable people in remote communities to access life-saving cardiac care, as the rate of people dying locally and world-wide from cardiovascular disease is increasing.
“Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death globally and the leading cause of death for men and women in Queensland, with rural areas having a 25 per cent higher morbidity and mortality due to reduced access to primary healthcare,” Dr Scott said.
“As a result, people are detected later in the course of their cardiovascular disease and end up, on average, dying seven years earlier than metropolitan locations.
“Thus the benefits for the patient accessing this new technology is immense; it means they don't have to travel long distances and they don't have to wait.
“Patients can get the treatment they need when they need it, enabling the local treating team to escalate the results to the specialist services that can then provide interventional and highly advanced care to the patient rapidly.”
Dr Scott said not only do patients and regional and remote communities’ benefit, but so too do the sonographers.
“The distinct lack of access to cardiac ultrasound or echocardiography is challenging as we don't have a lot of sonographers in Australia,” he said.
“They are rare and they also have high injury rates. If we push them too much to do too many scans we'll injure them.”
Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital sonographer, Matthew Johnstone, said performing echocardiograms can be challenging and cause injury.
“Doing echos can be physically demanding on the body and a lot of sonographers have injuries. The difference with this is the robot arm doesn't fatigue you.
“For larger patients, you hold the pressure for a long period of time, which would put a lot of strain on the shoulder, so this new technology is definitely going to reduce injury and prolong people's careers.”
Senior Staff Specialist in Cardiology at Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, Dr John Younger, agreed that hospitals often see injuries in sonographers; however, using the robotic cardiac ultrasound will go a long way to reducing rates of injuries.
“In order to get accurate echo images sonographers hold the probe in either their left or their right hand using different techniques, but often pressing quite firmly on the patient's chest, leading to shoulder injuries and arm injuries,” Dr Younger said.
“It wouldn't be uncommon to have multiple staff members off work at any one time because of an injury that they've sustained through doing their job.
“With the robotic ultrasound system, they're able to remote control the arm, which should hopefully limit injuries altogether.
Longreach is the first rural location not only in Queensland, but in the world, to access the new cardiac robotic ultrasound program, forming part of the ever-expanding suite of cardiac care services being developed with the support of Metro North Hospital and Health Service.
Central West Hospital and Health Service Chief Executive, Anthony West, said the partnership continues to support the efforts to deliver responsive, innovative, high quality and safe patient care closer to home and link Central West Health personnel to experienced advice across a range of corporate and clinical functions.
“Central West Health has a strong history of achieving great patient-centred and community-centred care, but our capacity to do so is very much enhanced by partnerships such as the one we have with the Metro North HHS and its specialist tertiary hospitals.”
Cloncurry is the second location in Queensland to access this world-first technology.
North West Hospital and Health Service Chief Executive, Sean Birgan, said communities in rural and remote areas like the North West generally have a higher burden of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease.
“This technology will provide an important cardiac service close to home for patients, limiting the need to travel to bigger cities.”
Dr Scott said the future is exciting, as specialist care in cardiology can be delivered anywhere in the world.
“It doesn't matter whether it's in Africa or in southern Europe, we can have sonographers remote control operating robotic ultrasound systems from Brisbane and scanning patients in Africa, or just down the road at Caboolture,” he said.
“The ability to be able to transform this from research to practice has been an impressive, exciting opportunity.”
Queensland Health is partnering with RMI Oceania to validate and utilise the new technology within the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital Tele-Cardiac Investigation Services.
