Visiting the same medical centre every time you’re sick is not the same as having a regular GP. We see this really frequently at Whitebridge Medical Centre. When we ask new patients “who was your last GP” they will answer “Charlestown Square Medical and Dental” (a ForHealth practice) or “Charlestown square medial centre” (an IPN practice). If you’re seeing 10 different GPs over 2 years all under the same roof then you’re not really getting continuity of care. I remain completely convinced that a sustained, longitudinal relationship with a GP means you know their name, not just the corporate banner they sit under. And that sustained relationship provides both direct health benefits to you but also efficiency and economic benefits to the system as a whole. More and more GPs are working less and less. So how do we keep people engaged with a single GP when they work less hours in clinic and move around more than ever? I don’t have all the answers but at least we are trying….,,,,, We use our tech stack to help our GPs and our patients find each other easily. We offer a proper cloud based software setup so GPs can do work from home and more frequent shorter sessions on their terms. We also offer asynchronous options for exisiting patients and follow up visits for flexiblity on both sides. But finally we as a clinic also try to keep people with their GP wherever we can. We were recently “shared hosting” a GP with another clinic down the road, with her consulting half the week from our rooms and half the week at another consulting group. The other consulting group was willing to offer a much lower service fee but would only do so if she stopped consulting with us. We elected to work hard to help her patients find her at the new clinic and to make the transfer of notes as seamless and patient centred as possible. We do this both because it is the right thing to do but also to help patients keep that continuity with the provider, not the clinic space. So let’s keep innovating and changing but let’s do it to keep people with their one regular GP. It’s just common sense. https://lnkd.in/gCBVbG4T
It's a call for more stakeholder consultation where the objective is to listen. Currently, frustrated GPs talking into an echo chamber, patients talking amongst themselves, government talking at (not to) everyone.
Managing Director at AraCapital Investments. Partner at Equitylink Advisory. Financial Strategy, Capital raise adviser and Investor.
8moSo detail your tech stack Max, more practices should review and move to cloud options to enable these outcomes. Continuity of care should also encourage greater ownership, control and multidisciplinary use of their medical record by the individual. ‘GPs can do work from home and more frequent shorter sessions on their terms. We also offer asynchronous options for exisiting patients and follow up visits for flexiblity on both sides.’ 👏