"I think it'll be reducing the need for patients to physically come to Sydney for the initial conversation. At the end of the day there are certain things it can't do; sometimes you really do need to have the patient in front of you and prod and poke them and all of that stuff.

"A lot of the initial conversation, and especially when it's in the more conversational stages, can be done using the videoconferencing."

University of Queensland senior lecturer in e-learning, Dr David Emmett, cites telehealth facilitated by high-speed broadband as an enabler in the health sector, allowing the next generation of healthcare professionals to gain access to learning resources from anywhere in the world.

"One of the things the NBN should be able to bring is the concept of multiple places where you can video conference with people," he says.

"On Skype at the moment it's one-on-one [video conversations], but if you think about the professional version, where you can have one-on-10, I can imagine a time when you could have students all over the country all come online and use Skype together." Emmett hopes medical students will have a seamless transition between study and work, with the same forms of technology set to be included in both university courses and hospitals.