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Description of the Proposed Paper Remote Health Care strategy (RHC) is an integrated approach, developed for delivery of health care in Arctic operations. It meets medical emergency response requirements and supports our principle "No harm to people". RHC includes aspects of: prevention; technology; supplies/equipment, competence and communication. It brings a virtual hospital to a patient, rather than taking a patient to a hospital. We will present outcomes of implementation in Greenland, Siberia and W-Africa. We will add to these experiences with comparative data analysis of global cases in expatriates, business travellers and Marine Operations where RHC was not in place. We will discuss how RHC could have impacted these outcomes and look prospectively at benefit in future Arctic operations. Application RHC is uniquely applicable in the Arctic but it is also applicable in any remote area of the world. In less geographically remote regions where the main restriction is lack of infrastructure, it can improve access to health by improving prevention, networking, decision support, access to external resources and education. It was designed to support operations but can be adapted and scaled to support community health and underpin strategic social investment. RHC is one model to move towards the recently articulated goal of the International Maritime Organization of delivering the same quality health care off shore as on shore. Results, Observations, and Conclusions We will demonstrate how one can improve health outcomes in the absence of local health infrastructure by employing RHC. We will show how our strategy is supported by a retrospective analysis of original data and vindicated by early experiences of deployment. We will demonstrate how RHC is supporting pilot projects in community health in a region with lack of access to health care. We will showcase results of an original review in our marine operations and how this supports a future RHC approach in our vessel fleet. Significance of Subject Matter The RHC strategy is a game changer for the industry, allowing it to operate safely despite lack of local health infrastructure, lack of rotary wing support and in harsh conditions where access to traditional modes of medical care is foresee ably not available. With highly-elliptical orbit satellite, sensor, near patient technology and streaming imaging rapidly improving, the real challenge lies in combining technology with enhancing capacity, competence, mind-set and behaviours of on-site medical practitioners, distant medical top side cover and even for recipients of care. |
