Appointment engines gear up for COVID-19 screening and telehealth

The major appointment engines hope they have created significant efficiencies for general practices by introducing COVID-19 specific protocols for screening and telehealth triage and auditing

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The two major Australian GP appointment engines, HotDoc and HealthEngine, which between them can reach over 10 million patients through their apps, and are used by more than 80% of the country’s GP practices,  have both rushed to develop specific modules to their patient-facing apps, which could significantly increase the efficiency of GP practices in managing COVID-19 issues.

Currently many practices are struggling with managing panicked patients who are arriving asking for help, information, and even to be tested, when they are showing no symptoms. One GP The Medical Republic spoke to yesterday described the situation trying to get to the patients who really needed help as mayhem. She described  the patient situation as “coronavirus anxiety syndrome”.

HotDoc announced yesterday that it had updated its software to allow patients to pre-screen themselves, self identify according to the new criteria for COVID-19 telehealth consults, and make a telephone-based appointment which could be bulk-billed.

HotDoc founder and CEO Dr Ben Hurst said the new service meany those in self-isolation or who were unable to attend a GP could still obtain proper medical advice.

The HotDoc app enables practices to screen patients for symptoms and epidemiological criteria for COVID-19 at the time a patient is making an online booking, or when confirming a previously booked appointment.

According to HotDoc’s clinical director, Magali De Castro, part of the education process during screening can be set by a practice to redirect a patient to a testing site other than the practice. These include the new fever clinics being established with government funding.

“If clinics are getting overwhelmed [the system] is able to facilitate telehealth appointments for the [new] rebate”, Ms De Castro said.

HealthEngine has also announced a similar suite of updates for its app which it says will be released by the end of this week.

According to both HotDoc and HealthEngine, there is not much overlap in the practices which use each system, so between both, which have integrations on all the major GP patient management systems, most GP practices should soon have a means of pre-screening their patients, and sorting them into those that can come to the practice, need to go elsewhere, or might qualify for a government-funded telehealth appointment.

Further, practices will have a means of staying engaged with patients about the specific protocols of their practice.

Earlier in the week, Healthshare announced that its BetterConsult product, which is available free through the Best Practice Premier patient management system, had been adapted to do pre-screening for COVID-19 as well. BetterConsult is appointment-engine neutral in that it polls any appointment engine of any practice using BP Premier, and uses the appointment engine functionality and engagement to access the patient with its pre-screening questionnaire.

Many GPs and practice managers are currently reporting serious disruption to their surgeries from patients who have no, or very minor, symptoms which health authorities are advising should not be tested, but who want more information or to be tested immediately.

Between all these products, most GP practices now appear to have the technology to better manage this issue.

Uprgrades to the HealthEngine app include COVID-19 self assessment (triage), a telehealth infrastructure solution for practices which are not set up with their own solution, and an audit trail for the new telehealth rebate.

HealthEngine has also set up a dedicated space on its consumer portal which provides updated information for both GPs and patients.

HealthEngine says  both the portal and relevant parts of the screening in the app will be updated as government guidelines change.

“Our COVID-19 response is in motion and we will update more in the coming days as we roll out solutions to support patients and practices throughout Australia,” Dr Marcus Tan, the founder and CEO of HealthEngine, told TMR.

He added the company was actively looking at any other ways it could assist the community and GPs by “activating and opening up our communication channels to support efforts that help Australians stay informed, healthy and get the care they need at this critical time”.

More information for HotDoc HERE

More information for HealthEngine HERE

More information for BetterConsult HERE