healthcare information Archives - Page 3 of 4

Harnessing the power of technology

Speaking at the Healthcare Innovation Expo 2013*, the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, outlined the way in which innovation is to be used to drive the NHS into a future where it is “freed from the shackles of top-down bureaucracy.” Giving the online seat booking innovation which transformed the air industry as an example Mr Hunt bluntly stated that “while they innovated, we stagnated.”

In a speech which touched on the Francis Report, culture and values as well as regulation and systems Mr Hunt highlighted the care and compassion which is at the heart of our health services. He also called for patients to be put in the health driving seat.

One of the key practices which the Health Secretary believes needs to be implemented to transform the health service is the move to electronic patient records. Giving examples of ways in which patient care can be improved by the use of electronic records, Mr Hunt said that a paperless NHS will have “massive implications for improved patient safety, genuine patient empowerment and self-management as well as scientific research.”

Of course it is not just the NHS which will benefit from electronic records. Health practitioners both within and outside the NHS can find that electronic records will make a sizeable difference to their working patterns. For example, the Clinic Appointments patient records service is already helping practitioners to streamline their operations.

With patient notes, documentation and X-Rays all available at the touch of a button the health practitioner no longer has to spend time in filing or searching for records. This means more time spent on patient care and less chance of errors creeping in if important documents are mis-filed. Combined with the Clinic Appointments’ virtual receptionist and diary management services the secure patient records service helps every health practitioner from a sole practice to a multi-unit facility to provide a streamlined and efficient service.

Health services in the UK are going places and those who are at the forefront of innovation and streamlined technology will be best placed to make the most of the new vision. Putting patients first, innovating, bringing fresh thinking to health care; all these are on the Government’s radar. The Health Secretary closed his talk, as we do this article, with this quote from Bill Gates “Never before in history has innovation offered promise of so much to so many in so short a time.”

*http://mediacentre.dh.gov.uk/2013/03/13/13-march-2013-jeremy-hunt-innovation/

Handing power to patients and professionals

As the fallout from the Francis Report continues to echo around the health sector it was refreshing to note an event recently which was purely aimed at innovating health care rather than indulging in recriminations. Think tank Reform got together with Imperial College’s Institute of Global Health Innovation to draw attention to some of the positive innovations around the world which we may be able to learn from within the UK’s health sector.

Acknowledging that innovation can be defined in many ways, the event focused on three fundamental innovations which could improve the quality of care and patient outcome throughout the health service; workforce innovation, self care and personalised medication.

A shift towards personalised medication is only possible thanks to the leaps which science has taken in understanding the human genome. With a greater understanding of personal risk factors comes the ability to target treatment on an individual basis. We are already starting to see the benefit of targeted treatments in areas such as cancer and as our understanding grows the potential for more effective treatments is limitless.

Personalised medication does in part require a buy-in from the patient in understanding the risks of certain life styles and family traits and the next step is logically to encourage patients to take more responsibility for their care. Self-diagnosis, arranging appointments directly with health professionals such as physiotherapists, managing self-treatment programmes is a step forward in understanding for patients but it will help to streamline the health service and target care where it is most needed. For example, a patient with muscle or ligament damage needs to see a physiotherapist or osteopath straight away and making them travel the health nurse/doctor route first is a waste of resources and time.

This leads on to the third and most important change which the UK’s health services desperately needs, that of workforce innovation. Doing away with rigid hierarchies and instead focusing on the individual patient means doctors, health care workers and support services all providing a flexible individual service. Beacon Health Strategies, working with the poor, elderly and mentally ill in the USA has done just that. Over three years the flexible approach has reduced emergency hospital appointments by 60%, reduced suicide rates by a half and got 44% into work.

Innovation within the health sector won’t be easy. It will require a sweeping away of the old hierarchies and a combined doctor/health professional service which is flexible and focused on patient care. Those health professionals who have taken steps to outsource telephone answering, diary management and patient records and who are therefore able to maximise the time which they spend on patient care are in a perfect position to step forward into the new innovative, personalised era.

Cutting physiotherapy waiting times

A study led by Bristol University professor Chris Salisbury has shown that using the telephone to make initial physiotherapy assessments can cut down not only on missed appointments but also on waiting times. The trial compared the outcome for patients who were offered an initial telephone assessment against those who waited for a physiotherapist appointment.

The study concluded that some patients can be managed entirely by phone but that despite the faster access to treatment, overall satisfaction levels remained unchanged. However, the Bristol University press release did stress that this evaluation was only one element of an overall requirement to examine treatment options for an increasingly elderly and immobile population.

Interestingly Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust has also released a report which shows that using a follow up telephone service can cut down the number of wasted and missed appointments within its urology service. Whilst these are just two examples, they do illustrate the way in which the telephone is playing an increasingly important role in the health practitioner/ patient relationship.

However, the more that patients come to expect telephone communication, the more they will be dissatisfied when phone calls remain unanswered. This poses a dilemma for the health practitioner. On the one hand they are expected to be on hand for patient calls; on the other, they don’t want to interrupt consultations to answer the phone.

The answer is to delegate their phone answering and appointment booking service to a specialist virtual receptionist service. With the receptionist handling calls, making appointments and sending out reminders the health practitioner can concentrate on treating their patients. And if telephone consultations are on offer, these can be booked in the same way as any other face to face consultation. After all, even telephone consultations need to be paid for and managing these in the same way as ordinary consultations via a booking system helps to ensure that invoices are raised and that no income is lost.

Another advantage of offering pre-appointment phone consultations is that the physiotherapist or other health practitioner can gauge the optimum treatment time, meaning that diaries can be more effectively filled, reducing wasted time between appointments. Whether or not patients can be treated via the phone will depend very much on the nature of their problem but what is certain is using a virtual receptionist to answer the phone enables the practitioner to concentrate on treatment in all its forms and that can only be good for the patient and the health service provided.

A culture of compassion

Following a number of high profile reports into the standards of care within the NHS the Prime Minister has announced a package of measures which are aimed at raising the standard of care provided by health services. Alongside measures such as improved training for dementia carers and a defined career pathway for care assistants comes a vision for strengthening district nursing.

The attention grabbing element of this new package is the introduction of a “friends and family” test which will encourage patients to report back on hospitals. Designed to be in place from April 2013 the test will then be gradually rolled out over the rest of the health service.

The measures have been broadly welcomed by health bodies with the NHS Confederation chief executive, Mike Farrar, saying that “we have got to ensure that a culture of compassion is running through the veins of every place that provides care, no ifs, no buts and no exceptions.” But whilst greater training and a renewed emphasis on care and compassion is a major step forward, there still remains the twin challenge of providing patient care whilst coping with the day to day paper work and interruptions.

A survey of social care workers in 2012 revealed that just 15% of time was spent in face to face meetings with clients with the rest of the time taken up with paperwork, phone calls, travelling and other meetings. If that figure were to be reflected across the health sector then there is precious little time available for patient care.

This time challenge is one which is not simply confined to those working in the NHS, but is also a problem for those providing other health services such as physiotherapy and osteopathy. For them, every minute spent on paperwork and answering calls is a non-earning minute which is spent away from patient care. This is where the services of a virtual receptionist can make a difference. With calls being diverted to a virtual receptionist the clinician can concentrate on providing treatments.

With diary management and patient records also being taken care of, the percentage of time spent on patient care can soar. More time means the ability to provide full treatments to more patients; it means less of the “next please” and more holistic treatment of the person not just the symptoms. In short more time means that clinicians can step up to the culture of compassion demanded and in the process help to take health services to the next level.

Telephone back up

The Suffolk coroner, Peter Dean, is writing to the NHS Norfolk and Waveney primary care trust to emphasise the importance of having a telephone back-up system in place. The correspondence arose following an inquest over the death of a patient whose family had difficulty contacting their local GP due to a telephone line failure.

Whilst the lack of phone contact was not deemed to have contributed to the patient’s death, the coroner did highlight the importance of proper plans being in place to cover telephone outages. In this particular instance apparently the phone lines were out of action for over 24 hours with calls being diverted to a single mobile.

The coroner’s observations on the importance of telephone answering could equally be applied to any health practitioner. Calls to make appointments, to query symptoms or to ask for advice are all vitally important to current and prospective patients and if they are unanswered then either the patient’s problem can escalate or they may simply go elsewhere. For example patients may choose to visit A&E if the GP is unavailable or may go to another chiropractor if their first choice doesn’t answer the phone.

So the problem of maintaining an open telephone line is not just confined to times when phone systems develop a fault. But for many health practitioners this poses a dilemma with the choice being between interrupting a patient consultation and not answering the phone call. The answer is to use the services of a virtual receptionist.

Virtual receptionist services can answer calls, make appointments and even screen unwanted sales calls. Available on a full time or as needed basis the virtual receptionist service means that calls need never go unanswered again. With added extras such as diary management, appointment reminders and patient records management the virtual receptionist helps to maximise patient treatment time without compromising service standards.

Because virtual receptionists work via the internet, even if the health practitioner’s own telephone line goes down the receptionist can take over, receiving calls and making appointments which the practitioner can view on line.

Following the phone failure incident last year the health centre concerned has upgraded its phone services with a view to avoiding repeat problems. But the story is a lesson for all those who provide health services on the importance of ensuring a back-up plan is in place before it is too late.

Fit for the future?

The 2012 Hospital guide from Dr Foster makes very interesting reading. The headline statistics about hospital occupancy rates alone paints a picture of an NHS which is full to bursting. Against an ideal occupancy rate of 85%, the report shows that for 48 weeks a year most hospital trusts have a bed occupancy rate in excess of 90%.

This not only puts pressure on trust staff on a day to day basis, high occupancy levels mean that when a crisis hits there is little spare capacity to meet it. So, the current Norovirus outbreak which according to the HPA is already 72% up on last year is bad news indeed.

Unfortunately for NHS managers the Dr Foster report highlights one major bed blocker that could easily be avoided. Apparently 29% of beds are taken up by “patients whose admission might have been avoided if their care was better managed.” This includes patients who are readmitted shortly after discharge, patients who would have been better treated in the community and patients who could have been seen as day cases.

The report does conclude that efficient hospitals can deliver good quality care but that areas such as missed hospital appointments, unnecessary admissions, a lack of weekend care and keeping patients in too long (or conversely discharging them too soon) all need addressing. The report also highlights the number of follow up appointments which could easily have been replaced by a quick phone call or visit to a GP.

When looking at outpatient appointments the report also says that “both primary and secondary care providers can take measures to improve the proportion of patients who attend hospital outpatient appointments.” We have previously highlighted ways in which some providers are taking steps to address this issue, using simple methods such as sending appointment reminders by phone or text.

Patients failing to show up for appointments is an issue for everyone working in the healthcare field. For health practitioners who charge their patients direct, a no-show not only prevents another patient from being treated, it also costs the practitioner in lost revenue. That is one reason why an appointment reminder service can pay for itself in reducing no-shows and keeping treatment rates high. Allied to a virtual receptionist service which can take calls, make appointments and even manage patient records, a health practitioner can concentrate on treating the maximum number of patients and providing good quality care.

Combining therapies

We are constantly reminded about the way in which regular exercise can improve our overall health. Now researchers in America have published the results of a survey of 10,000 people into the benefits of exercise, for those taking statins to lower cholesterol and prevent heart disease.

The researchers found that middle aged people who take regular exercise, such as 150 minutes of brisk walking or cycling per week, are 50% less likely to die in the next ten years than those who take statins and don’t exercise. Those who combined exercise with statins were 70% less likely to die in a ten year period than those who simply took statins.

The results add to a growing body of evidence on the way in which even modest amounts of exercise can help to lower cholesterol and prevent diseases such as diabetes from developing. In commenting on the study, Natasha Stewart, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation told the Daily Telegraph that the results showed that combining exercise and statins could “provide a winning combination to further improve your heart health, with higher intensity exercise possibly offering more protection.”

It is generally recommended that anyone with high levels of cholesterol or who has lived a sedentary lifestyle take advice from a health practitioner before starting on an exercise programme. This may not necessarily be the local GP, with many GP practices offering support services for a range of conditions. As with any health issue it is important to call on the service which is most appropriate and indeed the NHS Choose Well campaign is designed to help patients to choose the service which will meet their needs.

The aim of the Choose Well campaign is to free up A&E departments to concentrate on those who have a critical or life-threatening need whilst ensuring that all patients receive speedy treatment. For health practitioners such as osteopaths and physiotherapists this may result in patients taking more responsibility for their treatment and calling direct for appointments.

This is where a virtual appointment service such as Clinic Appointments can come in handy. With Clinic Appointments’ trained receptionists taking calls and making appointments, health practitioners can maximise treatment times whilst eliminating missed calls. So, whether you are treating patients who have responded to Choose Well and made appointments direct or coping with the aftermath of a sudden rise in exercise by the middle aged, you know you can concentrate on what you do best without worrying about diary management or missed calls.

Time to stop sitting around

A study from Leicester and Loughborough Universities has shown that sitting still for long periods of time can increase the risk of diabetes, heart disease and death. Whilst the trigger limit varies from person to person, those who sit for the longest are at greatest risk, with the strongest association being between sitting still and diabetes.

Dr Emma Wilmot who led the study said that “people convince themselves they are living a healthy lifestyle, doing their 30 minutes of exercise a day. But they need to think about the other 23.5 hours.” Suggestions to redress the balance include conducting standing meetings, walking at lunch time and typing whilst standing up.

There will be those working in some health fields who will greet the study with a wry smile. Health practitioners working in occupations such as physiotherapy or who offer beauty treatments can find themselves standing for long periods and so would welcome the chance to sit down at the end of a busy day. However, for them, the benefits of moving around during the day can be outweighed by the stress of having to catch up at the end of a day; with paperwork and telephone calls taking up time which would be better spent on leisure.

Those who are caught in this trap may well find that using the services of a virtual assistant can enable them to relax at the end of the day, rather than spend several hours on paperwork. Sometimes thought of as simply providing a telephone answering service, virtual assistants in fact do so much more. For example, taking advantage of diary management and patient records services means that patient notes will be organised and available at the touch of a button, appointment reminders and invoices sent out and the diary kept up to date.

This means that rather than turning round at the end of a day to remind clients of upcoming appointments , search out patient records for the next day and send out invoices, all the health practitioner needs to do is glance at their diary and then go home to a well earned rest. Add in the fact that whilst the health practitioner is working the virtual assistant is answering calls and filling up their diary and the overall effect is to reduce no shows and banish non-earning blank times during the day.

So whether the health practitioner is on their feet all day or not, using a virtual assistant service at least means the end of sitting around waiting for patients to show, and paperwork free evenings.

Prevention is better than cure

A disturbing report in The Lancet reveals that during the swine flu pandemic of 2009, preventative attitudes in the UK fell far short of those in countries such as Mexico, Argentina, Japan or America. For example whilst 89% of Argentineans washed their hands or used sanitizer more regularly during the outbreak, only 53% of Britons did the same.

A similar pattern was seen in respect of covering up coughs and sneezes and avoiding hugging or kissing friends. The conclusion from the research is that Britons are less likely to adopt protective measures than people elsewhere. This has implications in respect of the way in which information on disease is disseminated.

In response to the belief that good hygiene habits are best instilled in the young, Global Handwashing Day on October 15^th will take place as the centre piece of a week of worldwide hygiene-based activities. Top of the agenda is an attempt to set a world record with schools across the UK all taking part in a hygiene lesson at 10am.

Of course, hygiene is not just confined to schools and the public at large. Health practitioners know only too well that hygienic practices form an essential ingredient of the customer experience. Whether treating a client for back pain, providing a beauty treatment or simply providing a consultation; if the ambience and surroundings are wrong then the treatment will suffer.

One of the key ingredients to providing a good client experience is to give the client the surety that your attention is solely focused on them. This means taking steps to ensure that consultations aren’t interrupted by telephone calls or other distractions. Using a virtual receptionist service means that calls are answered and appointments booked by the receptionist service without the need to interrupt treatments to answer the phone.

With a handy always on view diary system the health practitioner can see appointments at a glance and keep control of their day whilst maximising treatment times. Add in appointment reminders and invoicing and even more time can be spent on treating the patient.

In a time when effective diary management can make or break a health practice, using the services of a virtual receptionist can help to prevent no-shows and minimise empty hours. Working alongside the health practice, the virtual receptionist helps to ensure the client experience is a pleasant one and that is the first step on the way to an effective cure.

Proactive phoning

A trial of a new telephone system has found that contacting patients by telephone can help to spot early warning signs as well as cut down on unnecessary hospital appointments. The study into patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease required patients to input answers to a series of questions using their key pads with the results being analysed by doctors.

This regular contact not only alerted doctors to patients who needed urgent attention it also eliminated the need for some three hundred unnecessary hospital appointments, saving both time and money. Regular contact also resulted in patients being more aware of their condition, enabling them to be more proactive in self-management.

In a way this trial is another step forward in the growth in understanding of how health professionals can use telephone services to improve patient interaction and fill appointment books. Simple measures such as sending out SMS appointment reminders can not only improve the client attendance rate but will also prompt clients who cannot attend appointments to cancel in good time. This enables practitioners to re-fill appointment slots and maximise time spent on treatment.

Similarly, taking steps to ensure that calls are answered helps to foster the client relationship. We all lead busy lives and tend to steal moments from our day to carry out tasks such as making appointments. If the call is not answered the chances are that the need to phone will slip from our minds for some time or that we will simply telephone elsewhere. This is where a virtual receptionist service can be so valuable. With the virtual receptionist ensuring that the call is answered on behalf of the health practitioner there will be no chance that the client will phone elsewhere or that an urgently needed treatment will be postponed.

Whether they be osteopaths or chiropractors, beauticians or physiotherapists, the one thing all health practitioners have in common is the need to maximise time spent with patients. Interrupting treatments to answer the phone or blocking out diary time to remind patients of impending appointments is simply not a viable option if the practice is to run to its potential. Calling on the services of a virtual receptionist service means that calls are answered, appointments made and reminders sent without taking up practice time. And with easy to use diary software which is visible 24/7 the use of a virtual receptionist doesn’t preclude the practice making follow up appointments at the end of a treatment session.

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Tag: healthcare information