Healthcare Communications offers free e-Clinic software for a year amid pandemic
Platform enables patients to converse with clinicians remotely
Digital patient communications supplier, Healthcare Communications, is offering its eClinic software to health and care teams worldwide, for free, for a year.
The e-clinics enable patients to see their clinicians via online consultations, from the comfort and safety of their own homes, meaning that regular health checks and medical reporting can continue even if patients or healthcare professionals are self isolating.
Kenny Bloxham, managing director, said: .”The solution is clinician led, so patients don’t spend lengthy periods in ‘virtual’ waiting rooms and clinicians can immediately connect with their patient.
“It can be rolled out at scale across hospitals and GPs within days and is a sustainable way to redesign the patient pathway for the future.”
eClinic also allows clinicians to collaborate and exchange medical opinion, through clinician-to-clinician support and consultation features, meaning communications between colleagues can be maintained and kept private, despite the professional distances created by the coronavirus pandemic.
The platform enables clinicians to convert entire clinic lists to virtual appointments. And healthcare workers can also use it to immediately assess urgent patients who cannot attend in person.
We have always felt that a significant number of our patients do not actually need to come to the clinic. And, during the current pandemic, having a service like e-clinics has become a necessity
An organisation that has recognised this potential is Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, which has implemented the software in response to it COVID-19 offering, and now have 40 clinicians set up to use the system.
Dr Muhammad Javed, consultant paediatrician and chief clinical information officer at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, said: “We have always felt that a significant number of our patients do not actually need to come to the clinic. And, during the current pandemic, having a service like e-clinics has become a necessity.
“The clinicians are able to tailor the consultation to patient's needs, which has resulted in improved clinician satisfaction and, hopefully, will result in improved patient satisfaction as well.
“The clinicians feel that the ability to provide clear instructions to the patient by in-consultation text chat, and transferring information leaflets using the file transfer facility, has made this mode of consultation safer. And the ability to share the screen to show the patients their X-rays etc has also proved to be invaluable.”
Where eClinic differs to other video providers is that the entire PAS clinic list is automatically replicated on the platform with patient demographics and contact details. All the clinician needs to do is click a button to be virtually face to face with the next patient.