Johannesburg, 05 Aug 2002
Author: Mike Eburne
Mr I.M. Ill walks into Dr Joe Bloggs Inc family practice suffering from severe hay fever. He explains to the receptionist that he has recently been transferred from Cape Town and would like to see the doctor about his hay fever. He states that he belongs to "SaveMe" medical scheme and hands over his membership card. It`s a smart card and he has to place his thumb on the biometric scanner whilst the receptionist inserts the card into her card reader to match the thumb image stored on the card with the print produced by the scanner. Verifying the match the receptionist then imports the demographic detail on the card into her practice management system, thereby automatically creating a new patient record.
At the same time, the receptionist sends off a real-time message to Mr Ill`s medical aid seeking verification of his membership status with SaveMe Medical Aid. SaveMe`s online real-time system responds telling her that Mr Ill is a current registered member of the scheme with comprehensive cover for all medical events. There are not other patients waiting so the receptionist directs him through to Dr Bloggs` consulting room.
Dr Bloggs greets him by name and Mr Ill notices that that the doctor already has his newly created patient profile displayed on his desktop computer. Already recorded in Mr Ills patient record is the electronic health record history that was also stored on the smart card. Mr Ill wondered how this was possible but recalled that the receptionist had asked him if she could download this information off the card when she checked his identification. Dr Bloggs asks Mr Ill what the problem is and also asks for more detail of his medical history. Mr Ill tells the doctor that he is suffering from severe hay fever. He also says that he subscribes to "CheckMyHealth.com", an online service that keeps Mr Ill`s complete medical history online and is accessible via the Internet from anywhere in the world. He gives Dr Bloggs his username and password and DR Bloggs logs in to CheckMyHealth.com using this username and password. Dr Bloggs sees that Mr Ill indeed does suffer from acute hay fever. In addition, he is allergic to penicillin, has been hospitalised once, four years ago following a car accident, had the measles and chicken pox as a child and his last check-up with his family doctor in Cape Town was 18 months ago where everything checked out OK. Dr Bloggs asks if he can download the information into the practice`s system so that they have this record in his patient profile. Mr Ill gives consent and provides Dr Bloggs with his PIN number. Dr Bloggs hits the "Get History" button and the data is transferred from CheckMyHealth to the practice`s system and IM Ill`s newly created patient profile is updated with his complete medical history. IM Ill asks that the doctor to update his medical diary at CheckMyHealth on a regular basis whenever he sees him and Dr Bloggs sets the parameters for this to happen automatically each time the local patient profile is updated.
Whilst performing a routine check-up on Mr Ill, the doctor explains why his practice runs so smoothly and why he and his staff are able to go home at normal times and don`t have mountains of paper to process. He also says that through the electronic systems that are now integrated throughout his practice he is able to glean valuable information about the patients he sees, trends in terms of sickness in the area he services and what are his most frequently diagnosed conditions. He also says he is able to contribute significantly to the country`s central health repository because all his procedures and consumables are correctly coded. He regularly updates the central repository with everything except the patient identification information thereby contributing much needed information to the government and world bodies such as WHO.
Dr Bloggs performs a basic check-up and notices that IM Ill is suffering from high blood pressure and asks when he last had his cholesterol checked. IM Ill says he has never had this done and the doctor takes a blood sample for analysis by the local pathology lab "Pathtests-R-Us". DR Bloggs informs IM Ill that the results will be electronically sent back to him by the path lab and he will e-mail IM Ill the results. The diary at CheckMyHealth will also automatically be updated with this information. Dr Bloggs says he is prescribing "Sneeze-Away", a new anti-histamine for acute hay fever and asks if Mr Ill has an account at a local pharmacy. Mr Ill says he has just opened an account at "Drugs-R-Us" down the road and the doctor sends off an electronic script to the pharmacy so that Mr Ill can collect the prescription on the way home.
At reception after the consult, IM Ill is informed that his medical scheme "SaveMe" has already processed the claim for the consultation and there is nothing to pay.
On his way home he stops in at Drugs-R-Us to collect his tablets. Again he is informed that his medical aid has covered the script and he has nothing to pay.
Whilst filling the prescription the pharmacist had noticed that he only had 5 boxes of "Sneeze-Away" left and placed an online order on the supplier for 100 boxes. He is informed by the supplier`s online ordering system that the order will be delivered the following day.
Does this sound far fetched? Most of what is described above is already happening in today`s high-tech world of business-to-business eCommerce and the Internet. The only problem is, much of it is happening in isolation and there is no real reason why this is so. We already have seen the immense benefit of online medical claims processing, online membership eligibility checking and online ordering of supplies but these are often done in isolation of one another.
The technology is available in healthcare today that allows for this story to become reality but take-up is slow. The problem is adoption, or rather fear or lack of it. Many of us, being mere humans, are literally petrified of technology and would rather revert to the "tried-and-tested" manual methods we are so used to. The problem here is that without technology the receptionist would not have been able to verify that IM Ill was indeed a current member of SaveMe and that the card he was in possession of was in fact his. He could have just picked the card up off the street. The doctor would not have been able to see the comprehensive medical history and Mr Ill could easily have missed some important detail if he had had to recall all this from memory with potentially disastrous affects. The medical claims would have taken weeks, if not months, to process and someone would have been out of pocket for that time. The drugs may have been out of stock forcing Mr Ill to shop around until he found a pharmacy which could fill the prescription.
Instead of saying wow, can this really be done, shouldn`t we be saying, wow, how did we survive without this? Get with the program. Empower yourself so that technology can help your practice to experience all the real benefits that a system like this can deliver.
Share