Assoc Professor Sam Heard: 'When is communication more important than anything else in health care?'

Описание: This talk was given at the 2023 International Symposium for Communication in Healthcare, hosted by the Institute for Communication in Health Care at the Australian National University, 14-15 February 2023.

Abstract: I will discuss the role of communication in assessment of people who present with health problems from the perspective of not having any local health provider. Although this is being developed for a remote Aboriginal community setting, this ‘digital first’ encounter has the potential to be the means of engaging health services in many settings. This Digital First approach is a disruptive mode of operation to current practice. It bypasses many of the encounter modes in current health care delivery; the positive and negative impacts warrant careful attention.

Biography: Sam is a general practitioner who grew up in rural South Australia and trained as a GP in central London where he had an academic position for 9 years before returning to the Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin. He has been a clinician and educator and has taken a keen interest in communication, particularly with patients in cross cultural settings. He has been a key developer of the international openEHR Foundation specification which is a language independent data specification for health communication. More recently he has been working on a ‘digital first’ approach to health care engagement, aiming to increase access to health care in remote communities. He is now working in Central Australia as the Medical Director of the community controlled Central Australian Aboriginal Congress. He is on the board of the openEHR Foundation, the Australian Digital Health Agency and is currently the chair of the NT Faculty of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.