Digital medical history in the waiting room

Digitization is already an ongoing part of our everyday lives. We use our smartphone all the time. We check the news, chat, look at photos, and surf the web with our small devices or tablets. We are familiar with using these devices and even the “older generation“ can make very good use of them.

In many patient waiting rooms, the collection of patient information and answers to doctor’s questions (medical history) is carried out on printed forms. All information is then manually transferred to a patient management system. The effort involved, in addition to the many other activities, is not insignificant for the assistants or in a practice where there’s only one physician. Also, patient information is often not transferred into the system by the time of the consultation. During the transfer, errors such as typos can easily occur and because of the General Data Protection Regulation, another form has been added that must be submitted, saved, and associated with the patient.

A simple solution is to use a tablet (e.g. Apple iPad) to digitally collect all the data required by the physician. In a combined questionnaire, all information is recorded directly in the tablet and then automatically transferred into the patient management system. The GDPR form with the required declarations of consent by the patient can also be submitted electronically on the tablet. Now, it is important to have a smart solution that directly interacts with the patient management system: new medical history questions for patients who are already in the system or the automatic sending of email and SMS confirmations, newsletter subscriptions or unsubscriptions; switch these notifications on or off inside the system.

It is possible that patients who cannot reasonably be expected to use a tablet may have to choose the previous method or may require initial support from the receptionist. However, some doctors also record the medical history of the patient during the consultation.

No matter which way the doctor and the organization choose, the time savings with a tablet are high due to the elimination of double data entry work and the avoidance of errors. With the support of a medical history questionnaire in several languages, another part of digitization becomes an advantage.

Many 4myHealth customers have already been using a tablet to capture medical histories for several years. Tablets from different manufacturers can be used. The use of multiple tablets at the same time for larger practices is also not a problem. The capture of medical history by different doctors can also be carried out using one tablet in larger group medical practices. The patient simply chooses his doctor, fills in all the fields, and can also draw directly on the tablet if this is important for the medical history. Finally, the medical history form can be signed directly on the tablet and transferred to the 4myHealth patient management system in real time.

No more copying, correcting and delayed completion of patient records after the consultation. With a tablet in the waiting room, workflows become simpler, cheaper and more effective.