Online patient completed FHIR questionnaires that allow the hospital clinician to decide on ‘advice’, a ‘remote’ or a ‘face to face’ outpatient consultation.

In May 2020 Ultramed was awarded Innovate UK funding to accelerate the build of 8 outpatient facing pre-appointment programs on their digital health platform in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

The original objective was to decrease the number of face to face appointments by 1/3rd as required in the NHS Long Term Plan. This would replicate the finding with MyPreOp® where 30% of patients avoid a face to face appointment when they completed MyPreOp®.

The patient completes the specialty specific online FHIR based questionnaire when they have been referred by their GP to the hospital. They create an account, enter and own their information.

The patient then shares their information which is processed, and a summary of the person’s presenting complaint and their background medical history is sent to the hospital’s Clinician Portal. As this is FHIR based and data is SNOMED coded discrete data can be integrated into the EPR.

The patient’s information is reviewed by a hospital clinician to determine the most appropriate of these 3 options:-

1. The patient and the GP are given advice by email or letter

2. The patient has a telephone or video conference appointment

3. The patient is seen in outpatients face to face. A shorter consultation time is needed as the clinician already has comprehensive information provided by the patients.

Clinical decision support is built into each program to assist the clinician in their decision and other actions such as blood tests or imaging.

A per capita pricing model is also available for the unlimited use of the Ultramed products.

per Capita pricing

KEY BENEFITS

• Facilitates the NHS Long Term plan to reduce f2f outpatient consultations by 1/3rd

• Saves clinician time as data entered by patients

• Clinical decision support – recommended tests and actions

• Test results available before a remote or f2f consultation

• Carbon reduction by reducing travel if a f2f can be avoided

• No upfront capital cost

• Procurement from the G-Cloud 12 framework