Coronavirus: Phone and video health appointments set to rise amid lockdown 2.0

Tuesday, 18 August 2020

Counties Manukau Health is expecting to see an increase in the use of telehealth during the lockdown.

With a new range of Covid-19 restrictions in place, the use of phone and video conferencing for consultations by Counties Manukau Health looks set to rise.

But what does telehealth mean for patients and what are its pitfalls?

On Sunday Auckland’s three metropolitan district health boards (DHBs) announced that they would postpone some face-to-face planned care appointments and move to virtual appointments where it was appropriate.

Counties Manukau Health has previously said it was looking at expanding its use of telehealth through phone and video conferencing after its staff increased their use of the technology during the last lockdown.

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A DHB report, released in May, looked at the Manukau Super Clinic's use of teleconferencing during the alert level 4 lockdown and showed 65 per cent of its services did half or more of their consultations using such technology.

It claimed it was responsible for a marked drop in the number of cases of patients failing to turn up for appointments. But it conceded the use of telehealth suited some types of consultations more than others.

According to the Ministry of Health, the benefits for DHBs in using telehealth include improved access to healthcare for patients and more educational options for staff via specialist video training.

It can help reduce the time specialists and consultants spend travelling to consultations and could also lead to a closer working relationship between them and primary care providers, the ministry said.

A Counties Manukau Health spokesperson said lessons have been learned from the first lockdown and it has since established a working group to look at how it could make improvements to its telehealth services.

“In the previous lockdown we could not easily identify which patients were suitable for a telehealth consult as opposed to those patients who still needed to physically come in for an appointment. This also affected our ability to clearly communicate with each individual scheduled for an appointment, and we were reliant on broad, general public communication.”

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As a result, clinicians now select the most appropriate appointment type to suit a person’s needs. The patient then receives a reminder text specific to their appointment type to clarify if they need to come in or use their phone or computer.

“Video calling of patients has not always been possible due to technological access barriers. During the first lockdown, a number of areas for improvement were identified.

“In particular, we are refining our processes to support patients and whanau to understand what they can expect from telehealth. We are also working with clinicians to enable them to quickly identify which patients are suitable for a telehealth consult and those who still require a face-to-face appointment.”

And it has also had to upgrade some of its technology. Counties Manukau Health said many of its services and consulting rooms have upgraded PCs and video-capable computer monitors to enable the use of video conferencing software for appointments.

Sarah Dalton, the executive director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS), said there’s a lot of support among its members for greater use of telehealth.

Dalton said the term telehealth is a broad one which can range from a phone call to a more elaborate consultation via teleconferencing.

“Since the last lockdown we’ve talked a lot to the DHBs about telehealth.It’s generally been led by clinicians and we feel pretty positive about it.'

But she said it’s important that health providers have the facilities, technology and funding for telehealth.

“This is not the time for number eight wire solutions,” Dalton said. 'We need to take those solutions and make them reliable and fit for purpose.

“But a number of DHBs are already doing that, including Counties Manukau Health.”