With primary care under significant pressure from underfunding and staff shortages, The Doctors Whakatipu are implementing innovative solutions to empower patients and ease the workload on their clinicians.
Patients at The Doctors Whakatipu in the Queenstown Lakes region can now take advantage of technology enabling them to record and view clinical measurements using the practice’s new Care Kiosk and The Doctors patient portal app.
The partnership between health tech company Webtools, health informatics company BPAC Clinical Solutions, and The Doctors Whakatipu provides patients and clinicians with real-time access to patient data using an integration between BPAC’s Smart Care Kiosk, Webtools’ Centrik platform, and the practice management system (PMS).
BPAC’s Care Kiosk is a self-service clinical measurement kiosk for patients that also saves time for busy clinical staff. The kiosk records a patient’s height and weight (calculates BMI) and blood pressure.
Webtools’ Centrik platform powers patient-facing applications that integrate in real-time with a patient’s electronic health record. This includes Centrik’s own Well app and The Doctors app, a patient portal app used across Green Cross Health’s national network of 66 The Doctors medical centres.
Using the apps, patients can connect with their general practice, access their health records, book appointments, request repeat prescriptions, make payments, attend video consults, and message their care team.
At The Doctors Whakatipu, patients can now also use The Doctors app to authenticate on the Care Kiosk and record vital clinical measurements. These measurements are sent automatically to their GP’s practice management system (PMS), saved against their patient record, and visible to them via the patient app.
GP Lead at The Doctors Whakatipu, Dr Kim Hurst, commented, “The introduction of Care Kiosks at both our Frankton and Shotover practices allows patients to record and immediately view their measurements in The Doctors app, empowering them to take the lead with their health. As a GP, it frees up valuable time during the patient’s consult, as the measurements are already captured and available for me to review.”
On average clinical staff spend 2.5 hours per day taking and recording clinical measurements. The partnership between health tech and health service providers embraces technology to provide patients with an accessible, frictionless solution to monitor and be informed about their health.
Recorded measurements form part of a patient’s longitudinal record, creating a reliable baseline and allowing a proactive rather than reactive approach to care. Consistently recording vitals over time highlights any outlier measurements requiring clinical intervention and the recorded data can help to manage ongoing conditions and monitor high-risk patients.
Real-time, on-demand access to patient health data and measurements is facilitated by integration between Centrik, the Care Kiosk, and the Medtech Evolution PMS. Using Medtech’s ALEX® API integration and HL7® FHIR® standards for health data interoperability, the patient data from the PMS is securely displayed to patients in Centrik’s patient apps.
“We have seen great success with the introduction of video consults using The Doctors app and the Centrik platform. We’re continually looking at ways we can harness technology to improve our care offering and service to patients,” says Kim.
The Doctors Whakatipu have been using Centrik’s virtual care technology for the past 18 months, enabling them to easily connect with patients across the Queenstown Lakes region via a reliable video consult connection and removing barriers to easily accessing healthcare, such as travel or remote work commitments.
Following the pilot of the Care Kiosk at The Doctors Whakatipu, the intention is to roll out Care Kiosks across The Doctors national network.
“Feedback from patients is overwhelmingly positive and people are excited to embrace new technology and methods which enable them to take charge of their healthcare, says Kim. “We’re looking forward to expanding the use of the Care Kiosks at other The Doctors medical centres.”
