Hero Health vs. EMIS Consult: A New Era for Online Consultations
EMIS Consult, once a prominent tool in the NHS online consultation ecosystem, is no longer available, leaving its old users in search of effective alternatives. While EMIS Consult brought structured forms and symptom-based triage into the hands of practices, its limitations and eventual withdrawal from the market have existing users looking for new tech. Enter Hero Health, a substitute for EMIS Consult's triage, but also providing messaging and appointment management.
Why Did EMIS Consult Exit the Market?
EMIS Consult helped practices digitize patient inquiries, with its structured approach to capturing symptoms through questionnaires. However, the system faced increasing criticism for its lack of flexibility, tedious workflows, and inability to integrate key functionalities such as direct appointment booking.
As the online consultation landscape evolved, EMIS Consult struggled to compete with newer, more dynamic and full featured platforms.
Hero Health vs. EMIS Consult: Key Comparisons
Configurability and Flexibility
- EMIS Consult: Delivered fixed templates and workflows for online consultations. Practices couldn’t tailor the forms to reflect their specific needs, local services, or care pathways.
- Hero Health: Offers configurable care navigation, allowing practices to design their own workflows. Practices can customize forms to reflect local pathways, enabling redirection to external services, appointment booking, or administrative requests.
Integrated Appointment Booking
- EMIS Consult: Required practices to manually handle patient submissions. Appointments were not directly bookable through the platform, increasing the burden on administrative teams.
- Hero Health: Integrates end-to-end appointment booking into its workflow. Patients can book their own appointments after triage, or staff can seamlessly book for them without switching systems. Hero Health also supports cross-organizational booking, perfect for PCNs and collaborative care networks.
Streamlined Triage
- EMIS Consult: Relied on rigid questionnaires for data collection. These often led to lengthy patient submissions, which could frustrate patients and generate unnecessary admin work.
- Hero Health: Simplifies triage with intuitive and flexible forms. Patients complete brief customisable forms, ensuring practices only receive actionable information that they find useful.
Messaging and Communication
- EMIS Consult: Focused solely on triage without providing batch messaging or robust communication tools.
- Hero Health: Includes batch messaging with options to attach self-booking links, questionnaires, or replies. This feature enables practices to efficiently engage large patient groups, further reducing admin workload.
Cost
- EMIS Consult: Pricing was variable but often cited as higher than comparable platforms when paired with additional tools.
- Hero Health: An all-in-one solution for 45p per patient per year, covering triage, messaging, booking, and more.
Why Practices Should Consider Hero Health
For practices once reliant on EMIS Consult, Hero Health offers clear advantages:
- Improved Patient Experience: Hero Health’s simplified and configurable triage process ensures patients can access care without unnecessary delays or frustrations.
- Reduced Administrative Burden: Integrated booking and intuitive workflows minimize the need for staff to chase patients or process redundant submissions.
- Affordability: At a flat rate of 45p per patient, Hero Health provides unmatched value compared to the cost of combining multiple tools.
The Future Beyond EMIS Consult
EMIS Consult may have been a pioneer, but its departure signals a new era for online consultations. Hero Health is at the forefront of this evolution, delivering everything practices need to enhance efficiency, improve patient outcomes, and reduce costs.
If you’re looking to transition from EMIS Consult to a future-proof solution, then get in touch via the Get Started button.
