After three weeks of 100% engagement of our clients via Telehealth, I wanted to share some interesting and reassuring feedback from our community clients and practitioners. I am an acting Clinical Director of our Mental Health department, thus engaging with a variety of ages and settings.
All in all - the adjustment of the clients and practitioners has been “ultra-rapid”. In fact, within a few days, most of them felt quite comfortable with it.
Quite a few of our clinicians have asked to continue working with Telehealth after the COVID period, as they see it as convenient preferable method of engagement for remote areas (and not just).
Kids and Adolescents have adopted Telehealth without any hesitation. Adults, by large, seem happy with it. Less success is shown amongst the elderly clients, and our poverty-stricken clients. For the last two groups we are finding Telephone contact to be the ideal default.
The psychotherapists are enjoying the “incidental” peek to their clients’ lives. The occasional cat that pops on the screen; a happy child who is showing off with his new toy. Little emotional moments in the house which feels at time like a warm invitation.
Acute presentation have been successfully assessed and managed by means of Telehealth. In fact, to date, the majority of our ED cases and Police cases have been assessed by Telehealth.
In patient follow up of suspected patients have been done in a hybrid format, utilising practitioners who are physically present, alongside clinicians who operate remotely. So far it seems that we are all satisfied with the technique, and its results, while allowing to maintain a reasonably large number of practitioners available, due to lack of exposure.
From the technical perspective: the majority of our practitioners are working with Zoom (free and Pro accounts) for contacting clients (mixing Video or Teleconferences via Zoom). For inter-departmental communication we have MS Teams which has been rapidly deployed and adapted.
All in all, while it is a shame that we needed a life-threatening virus to have a wide adoption of Telehealth practice, looking at the half-full glass, I would say that we are seeing a positive and rapid adaptation. Personally, I am reassured that we could continue and provide good health-care even in these difficult times.
Agreed, we have a similar experience in a large private psychiatry and psychology practice, with a rapid pivot to telepsych services over weeks. Patient experience and outcomes are both positive if for technical issues, reasonably well tolerated. Agreed - this is overdue across the sector in NZ. Triage refinement and referral flow need coordination as the pandemic’s king tide begins.
Thanks for that update.
I agree that it is a shame its taken a crisis to get us here, but never waste a good crisis…
I can’t speak for all GPs, but certainly been adopted in our practice with success. Mix of video (ManageMyHealth) and phone. Portal email active but not sure it has increased.
Also using MS Teams for our practice team. Meoning huddles with some in stafffroom and some at home. Regualr tools down virtual morning tea for folk working from home.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, great to hear positive experiences during a difficult time. Keep us update on your progress and further learnings. Really inspiring to hear these kind of stories.
Thanks for this Yariv, I have sent this on to our own MH teams who are experiencing a rapid transformation in both technology and work practice. Glad it is going well for you.
Had a patient say at end of a video consult that he found the power balance was more even - he’s a very capable confidant guy - us meeting in ‘neutral space’ rally worked for him.
Favourite outpatient letter for a while. (Patient consents to using the letter - name cut out). Its the simple stuff that works. The key tech enabler here is www.medimage.co.nz which allow simple transfer of photo from phone app direct into PMS.
One of the things @jon_herries brought up in our @nz-ciln-advisory videoconference yesterday was that there isn’t great data available to the MoH about how patients are finding our enforced shift to telemedicine. While good anecdotes are encouraging, we need good quantitative and qualitative data.
Telemedicine will be partially abandoned when things lift / relax. It is vital that we minimize this as much as possible. If we can demonstrate that patients love it (and I believe that they do) then we can make a strong case for ensuring that we make our informatics gains sustainable.
@CE2020 also told us that they are collecting good data for the patients that his organisation are treating. Is anyone else onto this?
I am planning a research study into this. Please let me know if you want to join me in this study. Am writing the funding application and ethics application this week.
Thanks Karen and Inga. Yes, let’s do the application together. I have set aside time tomorrow to work on this. If anyone else is interested,
please let us know so that we can form a team.
Here is the Zoom link if you want to join us to plan telehealth research. Just click on the link (I’m sure by now you’re familiar with
how Zoom works) and join us, even if you decide at the last minute you want to join us. This is an open invitation.
Agenda: Research question (what do we want to measure/know?); methods for gathering data (survey or interviews or something else or a combination); identify fund for our research.
