Critically ill patients in remote locations are a step closer to having access to expert hospital care close to home following the launch of CSIRO-developed, world-leading technology at Katoomba Hospital.

NSW health minister Morris Iemma unveiled the Virtual Critical Care Unit (ViCCU) pilot project on Monday. It will provide patients at Blue Mountains District ANZAC Memorial Hospital with access to specialist expertise at Nepean Hospital via high speed internet links.

"ViCCU is a joint project between Wentworth Area Health Service and the CSIRO. It will make long-distance critical care a reality and may eventually be adopted Australia-wide," said Mr Iemma.

"ViCCU includes an `always-on' telepresence link between Blue Mountains and Nepean hospitals, giving patients at Katoomba the benefit of around-the-clock access to Nepean Hospital's emergency and intensive care specialists.

"Virtual Critical Care refers to the use of live, closed television networks to enable a specialist at a major hospital to use television of such quality that he or she can safely care for a patient in a critical situation at another hospital.

"This is especially valuable in circumstances where observing the patient would help in making or confirming a diagnosis," he said.

"The NSW government has provided $1.2m to this pilot project which will potentially address the difficulties of recruiting specialist health staff to remote parts of the State.

"The Virtual Critical Care project uses second generation broadband internet technology that is far superior to and carries up to 3000 times the amount of information currently possible with ISDN.

"It delivers high definition video and sound in real time, far in advance of anything currently operating elsewhere in the world."

Mr Iemma paid tribute to Wentworth's Area Director of Surgery, Dr Pat Cregan, and the Area Director of Trauma, Dr Stuart Stapleton, for their commitment to the project.

"It's this kind of innovation - and the determination of these doctors to provide local people with the best care - that will help improve access to health services for all NSW people."

Dr Terry Percival, Director of the CSIRO-led Centre for Networking Technologies for the Information Economy (CeNTIE), said this was the first health care system to use CeNTIE's telepresence technology.

Mr Iemma said the advantage to patients at Blue Mountains Hospital is that they would have the benefit of Nepean Hospital's specialist emergency and intensive care expertise, any time of the day or night.

"In the past, medical staff at Blue Mountains Hospital needing specialist advice would use the telephone to speak to specialists at Nepean.

"With this new technology, they can use high definition video to convey not only their own observations about the patient, but high quality real-time images and sound.

"The specialist at Nepean will in fact be able to observe the patient as if they were present in the room."