Northern Health using The Clinician's digital health platform to expand their Victorian Virtual Emergency Department Statewide

MELBOURNE, Australia, May 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --  ^[1]The Clinician^[2], a digital health innovator, has partnered with Northern Health to develop a patient registration and intake platform as part of the Statewide expansion of the Victorian Virtual Emergency Department (VVED). Through this service, patients can access non-critical emergency care on their own devices, in the comfort of their own homes. The Clinician's digital health platform (ZEDOC) has been configured to provide the VVED with a streamlined digital patient intake solution and clinical tracking dashboard for timely access to virtual emergency care.

The Clinician has been working with Northern Health to replace the VVED's original intake technology with an improved digital front door solution. Launched in April 2022, individuals seeking non-urgent medical care can now register their details and complete a digital health screening assessment on their own devices. Through ZEDOC's tracking dashboard, VVED staff can access intake results immediately for triage and follow up patients via video call.

Taking less than 8 weeks from ideation to implementation, The Clinician team worked with Northern Health to include important features such as a registration form available in 22 different languages as well as SMS verification, automated clinical tracking, and a streamlined integration with HealthDirect's telehealth service. Currently, the new solution is being used by more than 200 clinical and clerical staff, who can access it onsite or remotely. The VVED has quadrupled its capacity from 50-60 patients per day since the expansion commenced, to over 250 patients per day. The Clinician's ZEDOC solution is helping to manage this increase. 

Loren Sher, Clinical Director of the Victorian Virtual Emergency Department, said:

"Working with The Clinician has been absolutely fantastic. They have taken the time to understand the problem and have produced a bespoke product that has exceeded our expectations in both quality and timely delivery. Their team are extremely professional and have been very easy to work with. I look forward to potential future collaborations."

The expansion of the VVED across the entire state of Victoria comes off the back of strong results from the program since its initial launch in 2020. That includes:

• Average wait times of 30 minutes to see a triage nurse via telehealth
• 80% discharge rate from the virtual ED with 40% directed to other services and 40% discharged outright

Tamaryn Hankinson, Chief Commercial Officer and Co-Founder of The Clinician, said: 

"Everyone can relate to the challenges of busy, in-person emergency departments, so our team is proud to be supporting Northern Health's VVED and enabling patients to access high quality care from home. We see this as a great example of how our platform can be flexibly configured to the unique digital health needs of hospitals and healthcare services and look forward to extending our digital transformation work with Northern Health into other exciting areas."

As part of The Clinician's ongoing collaboration with Northern Health, a patient-reported experience measure (PREM) has recently been added, and integrations with existing health information systems are being planned. Northern Health also plans to leverage The Clinician's solution to support Ambulatory and other Healthcare Professional services across the hospital.

About The Clinician

The Clinician is a global digital health innovator that is redefining how healthcare is measured and delivered. Our cloud-based health platform, ZEDOC, enables care teams to digitally monitor, inform and empower patients along their entire healthcare journey, from the comfort of their own homes. By supporting timely exchange of health outcomes, experiences and educational content between clinical visits, The Clinician provides both care teams and patients with real-time, actionable information to improve health outcomes while reducing costs and inefficiencies. To learn more, visit www.theclinician.com^[3] or follow us on LinkedIn^[4]

For Media Enquiries:

media@theclinician.com^[5]

About Northern Health

Northern Health is the key provider of public health care in Melbourne's northern region, one of the fastest growing communities in Australia. We care for our community by providing a wide range of health services across our four campuses, Northern Hospital Epping, Broadmeadows Hospital, Bundoora Centre and Craigieburn Centre. Northern Hospital Epping has the busiest emergency department in Victoria.

For Media Enquiries:

corporatecommunications@nh.org.au^[6]

References

1. ^{^}   (theclinician.com)
2. ^{^} The Clinician (theclinician.com)
3. ^{^} www.theclinician.com (www.theclinician.com)
4. ^{^} LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com)
5. ^{^} media@theclinician.com (www.prnasia.com)
6. ^{^} corporatecommunications@nh.org.au (www.prnasia.com)