At my surgery in March 8 people accessed their medical records electronically, with 17 viewings in total between them. We had 28 new people sign up for access to basic transaction services. 198 appointments booked and 69 cancelled in addition to 180 patients requesting repeat medication. Not exceptional - but a steady flow of activity.
Now if that activity were translated into all GP practices in England (adjusting for list size) every month there could easily be:
1 million appointments booked on-line
356,000 appointments cancelled on-line
930,000 repeat medication requests on-line
And a lot of the activity from patients using on-line services IS during the working day - so surgery staff can attend to other priority patient care and quality service related work.
Below is a graph that shows the EMIS average on-line access activity hour by hour.
More than 70% of the activity is during the routine working hours - very similar to my surgery experience.
So although I am exploring access to GP records electronically, it would seem that any effort to encourage more use of the basic transaction services at my surgery - or any others, is a clear winner as a priority! And when we take the next steps with FAR MORE interested on-line customers?
Peter S.
No comments:
Post a Comment