CNS Neurosurgery & our excellent, established telehealth/telemedicine/teleconsultation service – Videoconferencing in the COVID-19 era (but CNS has been doing this for years!)

[Updated 2 September, 2020]

We’re all living in and experiencing a very difficult situation, globally, and I hope you and your loved ones are safe and well. CNS Neurosurgery remains open for business in this COVID-19 era, including for urgent surgeries. We have rapidly and effectively adapted, as we know that we, too, provide essential medical services.

Currently, we are seeing neurosurgical patients and neurosurgical IME assessees face-to-face in our ACT and NSW Rooms, but for all others who are located outside of the ACT and NSW, or are unable to travel to our ACT and NSW Rooms, we are offering teleconsultations (aka telehealth, aka telemedicine).

I have been providing telehealth services regularly since 2013. I was informed by the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) in 2013 that I was their FIRST telehealth-certified member! Since then we have carried out hundreds of telemedicine consultations for neurosurgical patients and, from March 2020, also dozens of neurosurgical IME assessments via telehealth.

What a wonderful way to stay connected with patients and assessees, and also with leading law and insurance firms across the country, and be able to provide much needed ongoing neurosurgical advice and expertise. So much can be sorted out by this essential and high quality service.

CNS Neurosurgery has now reached all corners of Australia, Christmas Island, Nauru, Middle East, India, and recently the US. The telehealth service we provide is very high quality, cost-effective, reliable, and easy to set up. My wonderful staff can guide you through it step-by-step. Our preference is Skype, but I also use Zoom (both can be set up for free).

In unprecedented times like this, such services allow communities to remain safely connected and access specialist services especially for triage.

To our many law firm and insurance company clients, neurosurgical IMEs can STILL be conducted to a very satisfactory degree with the exception of permanent impairment evaluations. Since the pandemic of 2020, I have often used personally neuro-exam trained physiotherapists and exercise physiologists, and their assistance has been high quality and invaluable. Face-to-face IMEs with me are currently in ACT and NSW only.

All of the above, together, represents just one way of keeping the “wheels of the bus” turning and its steering controlled right now!

As an aside, to my medical, nursing and allied health friends, colleagues out there, many on the front line, thank you for the tireless and selfless work you do. You are much needed and loved.

Dr Vini Khurana