Researchers from the Caring Futures Institute will share ideas and digital health initiatives aimed at improving health outcomes for all at The Australasian Institute of Digital Health’s (AIDH) Digital Health Institute Summit 2020.
Dr Maria Alejandra Pinero de Plaza has been selected as a local expert and innovator to speak on the the topic of ‘Not well enough to attend appointments: Telehealth vs health marginalisation’ at the Adelaide leg of the summit on 25 November.
Professor Anthony Maeder will also speak, sharing insights into ‘Digital innovations for aged care: Impacts in the COVID-19 pandemic’.
The AIDH has selected clinical leaders, innovators, researchers, and forward-thinkers to present the best research and evidence for the advancement of healthcare at the inaugural summit, to be held online and staged across Australia from 10-25 November.
Dr Maria Alejandra Pinero de Plaza developed work with Dr Alline Beleigoli, Ms Alexandra Mudd, Dr Matthew Tieu, Dr Michael Lawless, a consumer co-researcher Ms Penelope McMillan, Dr Rebecca Feo, Dr Mandy Archibald and Professor Alison Kitson, to demonstrate that digital technologies and telehealth services are ethical imperatives for marginalised populations such as the Frail, Homebound and Bedridden People (FHBP) in Australia.
Their investigation also reflects on the importance of involving health consumers in health and medical research. Read the research story here.
“Policymakers, clinicians, and health researchers must work with end-users (community-based participation) to create an inclusive healthcare service”, Dr Maria Alejandra Pinero de Plaza says.
She says her team celebrates this opportunity to create a positive impact by sharing their ideas to a community of more than 16,000 nationally and internationally, with a further audience penetration to 18,0000-plus because of the partnership between AIDH and Pulse+IT news site.
Dr Maria Alejandra Pinero de Plaza says that academically this event is also relevant because their study will be published open access as a monograph in the IOS Press as part of their ‘Studies in health technology and informatics’ series.
“Hopefully, our passion about generating research-based knowledge that finds its way into healthcare, policy, and practice, can eventually facilitate the increment of social and health knowledge about FHBP; inform policy and system governance about the needed expansion of current technological resources for the care and health inclusion of the FHBP,” she adds.