Professor David Keegan:

We have identified two barriers and key breakthroughs that need to be dealt with in the context of IT and integration. The universal health identifier is a key enabler of all we are talking about here. We need integrated, unified IT systems that speak to each other, including patient administration systems, patient management systems and electronic patient records. We have the team built in around this that will deliver the co-ordinated care. The investment we are looking for is to bring all the community- and hospital-based regional sites up to an equal standard with respect to equipment and staffing, as laid out in the primary eye care services review document. Once we have that up and running, with the IT links, we can start to move our patients from the higher-acuity Mater and Temple Street sites out to the community sites.

Dr. Rogers and Ms Ryan may talk a little more about the reduction in acute paediatric care this model can achieve. We want to move the patients out to the sites when the care pathways are laid out to allow it to be done safely. We have two more care pathway EVSAs to run. We have the cataract theatres to get up and running in the next three months. That will start to move our cataract wait list down. Then we will have the community sites deployed in seeing the patients who are local to their unit. There will be virtual clinic rooms, whereby patients who have local diagnostics can be assessed by an expert without having to travel to see that expert. That will all happen before the end of the year.