How does telemedicine work at your clinics?

Imagine waking up on Saturday with a fever, sore throat and swollen tonsils. What are you going to do? You’ll probably get out of bed, clumsily pull on your clothes, get in your car or on a bus, and go to your nearest emergency room. There you’ll sit in a waiting room full of other sick people while waiting for your turn to see the doctor. With a little luck, you'll be home with antibiotics in a few hours. We cut the whole troublesome process of the equation. You can stay in bed with the Doctor online 24/7, the doctor will contact you via mobile phone or computer within thirty minutes at the latest, and you will be fully examined and given an ePrescription via a chat or video call.

We introduced the service in the spring of 2020. And for obvious reasons, the pandemic has created a huge interest in this form of medical care. Patients generally avoided doctor visits unless absolutely necessary, and thanks to at-distance medical care, they prevented the risk of spreading or catching the virus.

Is this a temporary "pandemic trend" or do you see the future in it?

I am convinced that we are at the beginning of something that will be a normal part of our lives in a few years. Sure, the Czech patient is very much used to seeing their doctor in person, but our doctors are confident that our patients' behaviour is changing significantly in favour of telemedicine. After all, we see clear examples from Western Europe of how telemedicine can be beneficial. For example, the Swedish healthcare system was able to protect itself from a capacity collapse after the outbreak of the pandemic due to e-healthcare.

However, many examinations are not possible without a visit to the doctor. You will not perform blood tests or X-rays remotely. What proportion of health problems can be solved this way?

Telemedicine, of course, has its limits. It is not possible to cover all medical specialities and all health problems. According to doctors' experience to date, seven out of ten cases that usually require a visit to a general practitioner's office can be resolved remotely - from various types of pain to allergies to skin problems. That's not a small proportion. So telemedicine definitely has its place in the medical system. It saves time, solves situations where a trip to the surgery is complicated or impossible for any reason, not to mention that it also protects against the risks of potentially dangerous self-diagnosis.

Which is almost endorsed by the masses of information available to us on the internet. 

Exactly. Most of us must have experienced an unexpected health problem at some point in our lives, and the first thing we did was go online and start looking for what it might be. And I don't know about you, but I always find the worst-case scenarios. And that's exactly what Doctor Online is preventing. In a moment you know what you’re up against from an individualised competent and experienced analysis. No unnecessary nerves or stress, and when needed, you will immediately receive a prescription for medication and begin treatment.

But insurance companies don't pay for telemedicine yet, do they?

Unfortunately not yet. But we strongly believe that this will change in the future. So far, it is a paid service, but all Canadian Medical clients already have it included in the price of their programs. We also implemented Doctor Online into the EUC Plus employee benefit, which our healthcare group provides to corporate clients. The general public can use this form of remote healthcare care for a one-time payment of 290 crowns as part of our mojeEUC application, which we introduced a few days ago.

In general, the entire healthcare system is gradually becoming more and more digitalised. I assume your clinics are experiencing this too. What sort of tasks are computerized nowadays?

Healthcare is a very specific field in which many things cannot be automated. After all, we take care of people's health and each client, each specific case or diagnosis needs a completely individual approach. Each of the operations or examinations has different time requirements. But, of course, we are constantly striving to improve our services, and gradual digitization is an integral part of that. We work with modern CRM and medical software and with the latest technology available in the field of healthcare. Our clients can use the myCANADIAN mobile application and through it can conveniently book with our doctors for a specific time. They will also find an overview of past appointments, including digitized medical notes and ePrescriptions.

How many patients use the app?

We launched the app about a year and a half ago, during that time we have reached almost ten thousand active users and the number is constantly growing. In any case, clients primarily use the app when they really need it- when a health problem occurs or when they need to get a preventative check-up. We are constantly improving the app and adding new functionalities.

Like what?

In a very short time, we will also introduce such handy features, including a search function of drug interactions or even drug-food interactions. And last but not least, we will teach the application to remind our clients when they should be taking their prescribed medication.

The whole article can be found on penize.cz.