EMIS offers online consultation service

GP system supplier EMIS is to begin the roll-out of an online consultation service it has developed with a GP practice in Cheshire.

The Marple Cottage Surgery in Stockport has been working with EMIS to design the internet-based consultation service, which is based on a template questionnaire that patients are asked to complete.

Now EMIS plans to offer the service to more GP practices for beta testing. It will then be offered free to all practices as part of the EMIS Access service. EMIS Access enables practices to offer online appointment booking, repeat prescription requesting and online record viewing to their patients.

Marple Cottage Surgery has so far used the service for patients with asthma and has now begun trialling a similar service for patients with diabetes.

About 80 patients - 20% of the practice’s asthma population - signed up to use the online consultation, which takes patients through a template of questions about their condition and health.

EMIS said the completed consultation is then automatically and securely sent to the practice nurse or asthma lead, who can then create a new, personalised self-management plan.

Patients can view their plan via the internet, providing they are registered to use the EMIS online medical record viewer.

The system enables the practice to code information from the e-consultation directly into the patient record. EMIS said the service was not a replacement for a face-to face consultation but that it offered a secure and clinically coded alternative to email that also guided patients through the questions that needed to be asked.

Marple Cottage Surgery builds its own questionnaires, which can be tailored to monitor different chronic conditions. The practice won the National Association of Primary Care’s Most Creative Use of Technology Award for its work on the service in November.

Practice manager Johan Taylor said: “While it frees up appointment times for the practice, the service is hugely beneficial for the patient as it engages them directly in their own healthcare. The more patients communicate with the practice, the more we can intervene if there is a health issue.”

Taylor said the asthma service had been popular with patients which had led the practice to extend the service to other conditions.

He added: “In essence it has become an online consultation builder whereby practices can tailor the information required for their own areas of difficulty.”

Sean Riddell, managing director of EMIS, said a number of practices had expressed an interest in the service and the company was looking forward to working with them.

He added: “This is a fantastic example of a forward-thinking practice and IT supplier working together to develop innovative technology that can be used widely to benefit patients.”