Whanganui deploys telehealth on Teams

eHealthNews.nz: Digital Patient

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Wednesday, 4 November 2020

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Picture: Loren Mooney at her Taihape base running a telehealth clinic with David Montgomery in Whanganui

eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

Whanganui DHB is running its telehealth service on Microsoft Teams and has introduced a routine ‘tech check’ for patients.

The DHB began building the service in mid-April and deployed it in June, in response to the need to provide care remotely due to the threat of Covid-19.

It is fully integrated with the Microsoft Office 365 toolset and DXC WebPAS patient administration system and uses DXC’s Open Health Connect to automatically book a Teams telehealth appointment from an outpatient booking and manage the associated workflows.

Alex McLeod, ICT service delivery manager at the DHB, says a key part of the process was working with DXC on mapping out the patient journey and what needed to be done to enable that. As part of this they introduced a new process to ensure patients can use telehealth.

Booking clerks go through a checklist of questions with patients about whether they have a device and data available and if they say they would like a telehealth appointment, they are booked in for a ‘tech check’.

These are done by the ICT team to ensure the patient can use the technology before they see the clinician.

“We didn’t want the clinicians to become the tech support and we want to make sure that their time is not wasted,” says McLeod.

Currently, anyone who does not have the necessary device and or data cannot have a telehealth appointment, but the DHB is looking at ways to increase access.

McLeod says this includes potentially giving devices to patients, sponsored data to cover the cost of a video conference and setting up telehealth hubs at local marae.

The DHB has also added a waiting room feature so patients cannot join calls too early and the system will let them know if they are there at the wrong time. They can also choose to invite family members or other support people to the virtual appointment.

McLeod says the DHB’s roll-out of Office 365 involves a modern workplace adoption specialist who works with clinicians on using the system, including Teams. Clinicians can launch the encounter from their Outlook calendar, their email, Teams or WebPAS.

The solution does not require a lot of change from most stakeholders as it is designed to replicate existing processes as much as possible in order to increase adoption.

It is being rolled out across the DHB in different specialties and those clinicians that have adopted it so far are very happy with it, he tells eHealthNews.nz.

Florian Stroehle, general manager healthcare accounts at DXC, says the interoperability platform based on open FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) standards allows the solution to be agnostic of the underlying PAS/scheduling solution so it can easily be repurposed for other healthcare organisations.

DXC is already working with some other DHBs on deploying a telehealth solution using Open Health Connect and Teams.

Learn more about the use of Telehealth at New Zealand’s DHBs and the impact of Covid-19 in our members-only special report.