The Otago District Health Board is exploring the possibility of using video-conferencing for some diagnoses.
The board's regional chief information officer, Grant Taylor, said high-definition technology might be used by specialties such as dermatology where there was a specialist in one centre who could assess patients in another.
It could help reduce some of the cost and inconvenience of travel for both clinicians and patients in some specialties as the Otago and Southland health boards moved towards more shared services.
A recent report showed staff travel between the boards was cost more than $800,000 a year, a figure which is expected to increase as the number of shared services rises.
A working party has been formed by the board to define what is needed for video-conferencing and what may be available commercially.
There has also been a call for better video-conferencing for meetings.
At the last joint advisory committee meeting of the boards in Invercargill concern was expressed about sound quality and the inability to show computer presentations to those participating by video-conference.
