BRISBANE, Australia - July 4, 2005 - Cisco Systems®, in conjunction with the Brisbane City Council, the Brisbane Mater hospital and a range of service partners, today announced the launch of the e-enabled "MOSHPIT" Bus, a mobile health outreach service for homeless people. Providing services to the homeless in the parks of South Brisbane, the MOSHPIT Bus is operated by DRUG ARM in partnership with Mater Health Services, St Lukes Nursing and Centrelink.
Cisco® has led the collaborative 'partnership' between 10 instrumental organisations to allow the bus to have ongoing Internet access wherever it operates. Cisco's 'partners' in the project have supplied many resources including laptops, a high speed wireless broadband technology from Telstra, secure servers and many other applications to enable a wide range of service offerings from the bus which take advantage of the Internet connectivity.
Ross Fowler, Cisco Systems Managing Director, commented today on the MOSHPIT launch; "The MOSHPIT is an Australian first and Cisco is proud to be using the power of the Internet to help improve the situation of disadvantaged people. Now, whenever this bus travels around Queensland, it is connected to the Internet and that will in turn help to provide timely care. This is a strong demonstration of the strength of the Internet and how it can make a rapid impact on our community and importantly, social development."
The e-enablement of the MOSHPIT bus will provide many more services to the homeless in Brisbane by being connected to the Internet 24hours, seven days a week. Some examples of advantages that continue connectivity are the ability to make instant contact with services such as the Antenatal Clinic Sisters and Centrelink officers.
Kate Ramsay, spokesperson for the Mater Health service said; "The benefits of the e-enabled bus are enormous. For example, nurses can now book appointments for people at the hospital online from the bus. Centrelink staff on the bus can now call up client records on the spot, rather than returning to their offices to do the administration and then hope to find their clients next time they are in the park. Health workers will now be able to link back to their own headquarters and provide a greater level of service for the women in these parks."
DRUG ARM State Manager, Krishna Heffernan also commented that "e-enabling will allow all the outreach teams to directly input data into their data bases and effectively save hours of transferring information from hand written notes to data bases back in their respective offices. This is an extremely positive move forward in improving services for clients and will immensely help the workers on the ground."
John Grant, Managing Director of Data#3 , said; "The MOSHPIT Bus is a wonderful example of how integrating information and communication technologies can enable more effective community outcomes. It's a pleasure for Data#3 to be able to support the initiative with one of our strategic partners, Cisco Systems, and with customers, Brisbane City Council, the Mater Hospital and the Queensland Department of Communities."
The MOSHPIT Bus has been operating around Brisbane since November 2003 and has delivered much needed outreach support and medical services to the homeless, in particular people who are failing to access mainstream health services and needing support and referrals to appropriate services. The MOSHPIT has previously offered clinical counselling and support services in the form of a street van at various locations throughout South Brisbane.
The following organisations have worked together to help ensure the success of the e-enabled Moshpit bus.
- Drugarm - Provides the Bus, a staff worker to coordinate the program, volunteer driver and outreach team.
- The Mater Hospital - Provides specialist health practitioners and midwives.
- The Brisbane City Council - Facilitates access to the parks and other places where homeless people congregate.
- Centrelink - Staff from Centrelink accompany the MOSHPIT bus to extend income maintenance services to the homeless clients.
- St Lukes Nursing Service - Provides primary healthcare.
- Cisco Systems - Provides Internet networking hardware and software
- Telstra - Provides high speed wireless broadband connectivity
- Data#3 - Provides laptops
- The Queensland Department of Communities
