Telstra Health director Kelsey says wi-fi must be free

Tim Kelsey, strategy and commercial director of Telstra Health, told a conference in Wellington that wi-fi must be free as a public utility to ensure everyone can reap the benefits of digital health-care changes.

Speaking at the Powering Up Our Future event, Kelsey conceded it was a "ridiculous" thing for someone working for a telecommunications company to say. But he told his audience that "somehow or other we need to come to a new accommodation where wi-fi is free as a public utility so that all parts of the community are respected with access to these services. The future of health care I think requires equity of access to wi-fi as a matter of course iso that not just specific services can be accessed but more broadly people who can't have access to information get it."

Mr Kelsey is a former director of NHS England, which spearheaded access to data under the 2010-2015 coalition government in the UK. He took up his role with Telstra Health at the start of the year. The Australian telecommunications giant aims to turn its health division into a billion dollar business by 2020 and has been buying up small e-health providers to generate growth. In March last year, Telstra Health bought Dr. Foster, the health-care analytics company Kelsey founded in 2000.

Kelsey was speaking about the importance of telehealth which enables clinicians and patients in remote areas to communicate via the broadband network. New Zealand health minister Jonathan Coleman referenced this in the launch of the government's new health strategy, which took place at the conference this morning. Coleman said that the strategy for the next ten years would ensure "Telehealth services enable patients and clinicians in remote areas access to the services and training they need". 

Kelsey envisaged a system in which communication with health professionals would take place via computer and TV screens.

"The ideal thing in my view is to move quickly away from proprietary networks, towards a world of 'chrome cast' in which people are able to very simply broadcast conversations with their nurse or doctor or clinician on to their TV screen and there are already very effective streaming technologies that, if broadband can support them, work well in that space. And I just think it's a no-brainer, it's all about wi-fi, and it's all about the quality of wi-fi access in remote parts of New Zealand and Australia. And that's going to be an important push." 

He referenced the result of a trial in Yorkshire in which introducing telehealth screens in care homes dramatically reduced emergency admissions to a local hospital. 

(BusinessDesk)