COVID-19 saw the introduction of triage solutions to NHS primary care, with systems such as e-Consult, Accurx Triage and OneContact all being procured at a CCG level.
Triage tools play an important role in protecting appointment slots for those who most need access to care, however converting triages into appointments creates workload for already stretched general practice administrators.
Hero is an EMIS-integrated scheduling solution, which enables practice administrators to invite patients to book appointment slots online via SMS. The solution is designed to reduce GP practice staff workload, by automating scheduling.
Once triaged, you can use Hero to send a booking link (via email, or SMS tools such as Accurx, iPlato, Mjog) back to the patient for the appropriate service.
Patients open the included web link, verify their identify via their date of birth, and select a slot, as retrieved from the EMIS diary. You can create forms to collect additional information relevant to the booking, such as recent symptoms - and then save these back to the EMIS record.
On average, a phone call booking takes 4 minutes for administrators to complete, not including time for cancellation or rescheduling.
Using Hero’s booking links, you can automate this process - the patient-centric solution enables patients to find a slot that works best for them, but without practices losing control of their diary (as is a risk with traditional website based online booking).
If preferred, a practice can batch invite patients to book an appointment; this can be helpful for larger campaigns, such as QoF reviews or Flu jab clinics.
If you’d like to find out more or to arrange a demonstration, click the link below.
