Aim
To reduce the number of specialist visits and associated travel for patients with chronic disease by providing an integrated multi-healthcare provider telehealth appointment.
Outcomes
- Fewer appointments for patients
- Less travel and interruption to their life
- Better integration of care of multiple providers
Background
VOICeD started as a conversation on Thursday Island between a man living with diabetes and Dr Gaurav Puri, Chair Statewide Diabetes Clinical Network.
The man told Dr Puri he could not keep coming to the clinic to see different doctors about each part of his care. This man had three specialist appointments booked over two weeks, which would then require a fourth appointment with his General Practitioner (GP) to coordinate his care, and this cycle would recur every three months. Continual travel to the clinic was difficult and disruptive to his life. Thursday Island is only 3.5 square kilometers in area and it struck Dr Puri hard that the difficulties experienced by this person from a small island to keep up with medical appointments for underlying chronic disease would be same for other consumers living in urban, regional and rural areas.
The conversation inspired us to develop a specialist model that would assist the man and many people with chronic disease who face a similar situation of long term need for frequent healthcare from a multiple providers, and cannot easily access face to face care.
The Telehealth Virtual Clinic which expanded rapidly in 2020 was adapted to provide the required technical functionality. It offers a sustainable, enterprise supported technical solution.
Designing the clinic flows and patient experience with consumers was facilitated by Queensland University of Technology (QUT) user experience designers as the first project of the Health Accelerator Excellence Lab (HEAL), a collaboration between the Healthcare Improvement Unit and QUT-Design Lab.
