Video consultation swiftly grew in popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic due to the need for social distancing, and the success they have had convinced GP surgeries, hospitals and other mental health and community care services to expand the amount of these video consultations they are having on a daily basis.
The concept was limited a decade ago given the capacity of NHS equipment and personal technology. Smartphones were only just offering video calls (think Apple’s ‘Facetime’) and the combination of webcam quality and internet speed wasn’t cost-friendly, but as time has gone by so too have quality and cost improved enough to meet a minimum standard that supports a wider rollout of such an approach to virtual appointments.
A healthcare video consultation is typically used in primary care and secondary care settings, with tertiary care and quaternary care being more specialised and advanced and likely a face-to-face situation for the sake of importance and potential severity.
My end goal is to take away any of the stigma surrounding this healthcare technology and to evaluate video consultation fairly. In this article I’ll spell out what a video consultation is, but I will also provide a patient’s guide to how they work. In addition, I’ll cover the benefits of a medical video consultation, the drawbacks, and the industry consensus on how important they are with input from the likes of the Royal College of General Practitioners and the General Medical Council.
Anticipatory care is similar to proactive or preventative care, which we’ll discuss in further detail shortly, but it’s an overlooked aspect of healthcare that we want to explore in this article. It relates heavily to palliative care; care that alleviates suffering but ultimately cannot treat a condition. Sadly, these patients are often end of life cases. Some will be managed within a hospital setting, whilst others will be cared for in a residential care home, hospice or nursing home or – on rare occasions - at home, and all is done through an anticipatory care plan.
The crux of this article will be discussing the concept of the anticipatory care plan, and how it is an addition to existing preventative, proactive or reactive care – a topic Access has already written about. The anticipatory care approach works to intervene before a person’s condition deteriorates. In some cases this can be tactical care support that builds up an individual, so that they’re stronger or more resilient in the face of illness, but in others it’s purely support to prevent suffering.
Anticipatory care interventions are somewhat similar to advanced care planning, which itself is the foresight to predict outcomes ahead of time (whether that relates to age, gender, past illnesses, family history or specific issues in society at that time like Covid). In the case of anticipatory care though it’s more forward planning; a discussion between client and carers about the individual’s wishes, their hopes, their fears, and the best approach to ensure their needs are met.
In this article we will give the anticipatory care definition, as well as focus heavily on the anticipatory care plan and what it is, what framework it uses, and how it relates to palliative care. We’ll also explore how NHS England and NHS Scotland differ on the matter, before concluding with a round-up of the subject matter and how the anticipatory care and preventative care can work in tandem.
Healthcare is in the process of ‘levelling up’ with widescale digitisation of solutions to support clinicians, administrators and patients. However, to better improve the patient experience healthcare providers need to engage with patients more and encourage patient activation.
This has traditionally been done by literature (pamphlets, books etc) but is now being done by text or email alerts from healthcare providers and via patient portals, where individuals can access their medical records, personal information, educational resources, and contact information to speak with clinicians.
Patient engagement cannot happen without patient activation though – which we expand upon below – and that is the crux of this article: what patient activation is and how it ties in with patient engagement.
We also explore ways of “activating patients” i.e. encouraging their interest in their care, as well as how the NHS PAM tool works and how to potentially increase patient activation.
Following on from our article ‘What is patient flow management?’ we move on to evaluating how to go about improving patient flow.
Modern healthcare is undergoing necessary mass digitisation but while this process is going on it’s crucial that healthcare professionals (clinical, administrative, or managerial) evaluate all of the care procedures and processes currently in place to ensure they are still appropriate.
One such process is patient flow, which is also one of the biggest factors affecting care. The technological makeover of healthcare is being driven through on the basis of improving care for the individual. This can be seen on the basis of speeding up treatment, accommodating patients more with flexibility in appointments and treatment locations, engaging communication, reduced workload and duress for staff… the list goes on. Without adequate patient flow, none of this can be achieved. There’s no smart scheduling for appointments and staff rotas. There’s no rapid adjustments between wards and departments for bed usage or patient follow-ups.
In this article we will explore just how important patient flow is, as well as how important it is to improve patient flow, how to do this, and how the NHS might approach this from a strategic perspective. It is our hope that this can serve as a good practice guide with focus on improving patient flow.
Considering how many people are cared for in a hospital on a daily basis, how many members of staff a hospital employs, and how many different departments, teams and specialties there are, it’s a very sensible approach to implement a hospital management system (HMS).
Organisations need order, clarity and control. A HMS can provide this, and these days does so with the reliance on an information system powered by healthcare software. This can be cloud-based (remotely hosted) or held on an internal, private server – all depending on a hospital’s preference – but in both instances will help simplify what is a complicated oversight process.
In this article I will explain the functionality of a hospital management system, the early origins and the evolution of HMS in line with technological developments, as well as the many benefits to be had from these systems and the challenges facing management. After reading, you should be much better equipped to assess these systems yourself.
Ensuring health and care professionals have up-to-date information is crucial. Better information means better care can be provided by giving the most appropriate treatment.
At present your medical information exists in a unique record per healthcare organisation or provider you visit, be it your local GP, the pharmacy, a physiotherapist, or A&E. This means organisations need to request access to your existing information to build up a patient profile and your bigger health picture.
This isn’t convenient, but a shared care record is. Shared care records help caregivers and clinicians by collating all of a patient’s information, but it’s the interoperability of health and care software that gives them access to this information at the point of care throughout a patient’s journey.
Funding shortfall, staff shortages, and increased life expectancy are all putting huge pressure on the NHS, and other care groups are experiencing similar difficulties. By pursuing opportunities to improve care and make care provision more efficient, healthcare organisations can reduce some of this pressure – allowing them to continue to be there for people in need. Joined-up care is the future, and NHS shared care records are a way to achieve this.
Have you been thinking about implementing care home software into your care service? But you’ve delayed the transition due to concerns? Fortunately, with the right research and knowledge, there are simple and effective ways to avoid most of the common problems associated with choosing care home software and implementing it.
While new care home management software can drastically improve many areas within your care service, it does come with its challenges. Managers will need to prepare themselves and pay a lot of attention to satisfy all framework conditions and to ensure everyone understands and accepts this new way of life.
Patient portals are an inevitable part of the modernisation and digitisation of healthcare. They are an opportunity for people to access and manage their own data, and the NHS, GP services, and other organisations are keenly pursuing these avenues to empower the public.
At The Access Group, we’re keenly seeking new opportunities to help with our software solutions. There are many possibilities for how a patient portal could be integrated with other tools such as electronic patient records, a mood diary, and even home monitoring kit.
With this in mind, we have delved into patient portals: what they are, examples of their implementation, and the pros and cons of using such digital avenues in healthcare.
Improving patient engagement is the big aspiration for healthcare services around the world. In this digital age, people are already interacting with numerous other services in their lives, and that engagement or accommodation is desirable – after all, it’s providing greater knowledge to a person managing their affairs. It’s empowering them to make better decisions.
In our previous articles (Patient Engagement explained, Patient Engagement strategies) we discussed what patient engagement is, why it matters to both patients and clinicians, and how healthcare organisations – public or private - are approaching this challenge.
In this fifth and final article in the series, we delve into how to increase patient engagement, and nine ways that healthcare providers can achieve better interaction with patients to ultimately improve care outcomes.
With modern healthcare striving to be ever more inclusive and accommodating of patient needs and wishes, digital patient engagement platforms are rapidly seeing an uptick in usage by healthcare services and providers.
The point of these patient engagement apps is to get patients onboard with their own care. Research shows that patient activation leads to better care outcomes, because a patient both understands the care they are receiving but also feels like they have control over the approach to their treatment or care.
As more solutions become available it will become more important to assess the quality of these solutions. Before that though we need to explore the technology at hand and the companies offering these solutions. In this article we will do just that, making you better equipped for future patient engagement decisions.
