How to digitize your medical practice

The current situation in Germany

Pay with your mobile phone at the cash register, buy flight and train tickets, book holidays and shop online, all of this works digitally and is used by millions of people every day. Moving with the times and jumping on the digitization bandwagon is therefore a great opportunity and certainly not a risk.

Until now, a patient had to call the doctor to make an appointment. However, many patients would like to book appointments with doctors online. The main reasons for this are:

• The possibility to book an appointment 24 hours a day
• Annoying phone queues are a thing of the past
• Get put on online waiting lists
• Get appointment reminders via SMS or email
• Overview of available appointments and, as a result, the free choice of doctor

Nevertheless, digitization has already made significant progress in recent years. According to one study The KBV (Federal Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians) use digitized patient documentation. However, in 37 percent of practices, there is no or only partial connection of the devices to the practice management system (PVS) because standardized interfaces are missing. However, many doctors are afraid of further steps towards digitization due to possible security gaps in the IT systems. In addition, some doctors fear that their good relationship with customers could worsen due to the lack of personal contact.

The digital communication between doctors is also still failing. In most cases, this is done on paper. This would be particularly helpful when changing a family doctor, for whom the patient file must be handed over, or if referrals are made to another doctor, etc.

What does a medical practice need for digitization

A medical practice needs good specialists, and everyone knows that, of course. In addition to this expertise, a practice also includes cutting-edge technology. Old machines and devices must be replaced by better new ones.

However, technology must also improve in the form of software on PCs. Keeping an appointment calendar and recording patient data is no longer enough. Special appointment calendars optimized for medical practices include components that automate processes and save time. The system automatically sends appointment confirmations and reminders and quickly informs patients of unplanned changes. There is also a lot of room for improvement, such as 24/7 online appointment booking.

Find out what patients want in the blog post: What do patients really want in a doctor's office?

Long waiting times in practices

Who doesn't know it? You've been caught and you're sick in bed. The mere thought of having to wait hours with the doctor despite an appointment doesn't make the journey easy. Arrived at the doctor and everything is as expected. People are standing in line, sometimes standing or sitting on the ground because the waiting room is full. “Now just lie in bed and my netflix Continue watching the series” will certainly be the wish of many.

It's doable.

Of course, you can't offer your patients a bed. But at least you can provide free WiFi.

Many patients don't want to miss the luxury of the Internet while waiting for their appointment. They use the Internet while waiting using the data volume of their mobile phone contract. For many, this quickly reaches its limits. The result: only a very slow Internet, with which no longer even emails can be retrieved and read. In the worst case scenario, the patient's cell phone won't even connect to the Internet because there is no reception.

What hotels, cafés and gyms have been offering as an additional service for a long time, you can now also do in your practice. Do you offer the free WiFi for guests of Socialwave on. This allows your patients to endure the waiting time better and the registration staff can go about their work undisturbed instead of dealing with complaints and reassuring waiting people.

If there is already a WLAN in the practice, for example for networking medical devices or for employees, there is a great temptation to choose the simplest route and let patients access the Internet via this WLAN. Because of data and information protection, this is a very bad idea. Data protection is important, but even more so in medical practices. It is important that confidential patient data is not shared with third parties. To prevent access to your database, you should set up a separate, external WLAN network for patients. Socialwave can help you with this and ensure that there is no security vulnerability in your WiFi hotspot. Each patient must log in to the registration area and agree to the terms of use before they can use the WLAN. In the event of a warning, you can therefore deny all guilt. With a professional hotspot, you're on the safe side. In addition, blocked pages could not even be accessed by users.

Your benefits:

• Get Google reviews
• Place pop-up advertising spaces
• Sending emails
• Warning-proof WiFi

For more benefits and information, visit our webpage and in the blog post: WiFi hotspot in the waiting room.

Users of digital offerings from medical practices find them to be very helpful

The vast majority of patients who have already had the opportunity to use a digital service in their doctor's practice are convinced of it: 96 percent of those who have already booked their doctor's appointment online say that this offer is (very) helpful. 93 percent of users of the offer make this statement for the e-prescription, 92 percent for the digital medical record and 87 percent for the online video consultation. The readiness to reuse rates are correspondingly high, which are 95 percent for online appointment booking, 92 percent for digital patient records and 82 percent for online video consultations.

All numbers come from one study of Jameda come out.

With video telephony for initial diagnosis

A typical Friday evening phenomenon: While every doctor's office is already on the weekend, parents or the child suddenly feel bad: skin rashes, fever or stomach cramps cannot be classified. The cozy evening is gone while Google predicts the worst. It is not an emergency, so no trip to hospital but a doctor's opinion would help parents and children sleep better.

Electronic health records or ePA

Visits to various doctors have so far been time-consuming for patients. Questionnaires had to be completed, documents had to be obtained and investigations were carried out twice. This is changing with the electronic health record (ePA), which will be published on 01.01.2021. It stores all health data for life. The customer alone has access to their ePA and can determine for themselves who has access to it.

Which data is actually stored?

• findings
• diagnoses
• therapeutic measures
• Treatment reports
• vaccinations
• electronic medication plans
• electronic doctor's letters
• Emergency records

Watch out! The data is only stored for as long as the patient wishes.

Electronic prescription or e-prescription

What is an eRecipe?

An eRecipe is no different than a recipe that everyone only knows digitally instead of in paper form. What exactly this will look like in the future is not yet entirely clear. But the fact is that the patient no longer has to go to a pharmacy to get the prescribed medication, but can have it delivered to their home. The federal government stated that the eRecipe will be introduced by 2020.

The big advantage of this e-prescription or e-prescription is that all medications that the patient buys can be viewed. This prevents possible interactions between drugs that are incompatible with each other.

conclusion

There will be some changes in medical practices and patients. Positive changes that have enormous benefits for doctors and employees as well as for patients. It is important for practices to stay up to date with the latest knowledge and technology. The e-prescription and e-health records will certainly come in 2020 and 2021.

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