I mentioned before that our daughter and future son-in-law (also our beautiful and brilliant granddaughter) are leaving London and have acquired a medical practice nearby. Since the apartment was completed ahead of schedule (about three months) they too have accelerated their departure from London. Our daughter followed her brilliant father (the tech guru aka Nerd Dad) and is deploying technology in their new surgery.
The first thing they did, when they signed the purchase contract was to begin digitizing all the patient files, which was overdue, but small UK practices had been given longer timeframes mainly because of both availability and the cost of digitizing. However, for our daughter and (future) husband, it was something they needed from day one (also part of the law on patient medical files).
In short, when they take over the medical practice the entire medical filing system will be removed, the paper files will be kept for a year and then destroyed as per the law (also in case digitization made errors). The walk-in aspect of the clinic will also stop as soon as they take over, instead, every patient has been given an application that is incredibly easy to use that allows them to make an appointment, the appointment can be the same day, in reality, it can be within 30 minutes, but it eliminates the wait time and the risk to patients in being in an overcrowded waiting room.
The three members of staff who were in charge of client medical records will be leaving the practice, and additional new nurse practitioners have been hired (they can do a lot of the doctor's work). Notes are taken directly on tablets and obviously, there is some dictation for patient notes, but that too is now sent directly to a company that takes the dictation and translates it into text. The software also allows my daughter to write prescriptions which are sent directly to the patient's preferred pharmacy.
Some of her patients will wear an Apple watch which will take their blood pressure, and monitor activity and heart rate. All this data is fed into the surgery's system and assists my daughter and her partner in treating patients. She says the most important tool is the appointment, and when necessary house calls, which are still very common in the countryside.
Our daughter (she is arriving first), and her future husband who is stuck in London until the end of the summer. She will be able to triple the number of patients she sees on a daily basis. However, because of the new nurses and technology, far higher levels of health care can be provided. The data is clear already all the tools she is implementing are well tested, the level of care will be at least an order of proportion better. Less time filling out forms and more time listening to patients.
Our daughter is adamant that the issue is always the same in healthcare, that there are two important tools in medicine, your ears and your eyes are the first, the results of the immediate tests are the second, and the trend is the third. The act of filling prescriptions or writing up patient notes is an administrative task that doesn't help, but the smart system that follows the data both qualitative and quantitative is a game changer. Much better suited to the general practitioners than to the specialists.
As my daughter tells me, when she walks in for a consultation with a patient, she has a two-line summary from the nurse practitioner, the reason for the most recent visit, the type of medication the patient has been taking, and general health data including blood pressure and heart rate. She also knows the "complaint" or the reason for the visit. As she says, when she walks in she is 100% focused on the patient and dealing with his problem. Her eyes and ears are 100% ready to observe.
Fascinating
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