RACGP president Frank Jones says the success of ReadyCare will rely on continuity of care. Picture: Colin Murty Source: News Corp Australia
Telstra’s latest addition to its e-health portfolio is set to marshal the resources and skills of full-time doctors to deliver convenience-driven healthcare through a mobile app and telephone service.
ReadyCare, poised for release on July 1, will provide 24/7 access to a GP consultation via a secure video service, and is built on a Swiss online model by joint-venture partner and healthcare provider Medgate.
Telstra’s head of Consumer and Tele-Health Services Wayne Liubinskas told The Australian that ReadyCare flipped the GP healthcare model on its head.
“The current consumer experience is that you have to go see a doctor at a time that really works for them as opposed to what works for you as a consumer,” Mr Liubinskas said. “ReadyCare is really about getting access to the care. We see it coming together in a concept of a consumer gateway which allows (the) consumer to access all different parts of the healthcare platform.
“Consumers are being quite sleepy when it comes to convenience in healthcare. We believe they’ll start to wake up and become more aware of their options.”
The telco giant is launching the service with a small number of directly employed doctors, nurses and receptionists but Mr Liubinskas said the rollout would eventually include GPs who wish to supplement their income with extra consultations.
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioner’s president Frank Jones said the success of ReadyCare as a quality care provider would rely on continuity of care, and making sure a patient’s primary care giver was kept informed of telehealth exchanges.
“The underlying principle for all this has to be about providing quality care for patients and making sure their care is not fragmented,” Dr Jones said.
“We’ve got some concerns, from a college perspective, about fragmentation of care, but we’re watching this space and recognising that there are some positive things in this type of service.
“Dealing with a third person, an extraneous doctor, that’s what we’ve got to watch pretty carefully. If that third GP person is providing feedback to the primary caregiver, as long as the guidelines are stringent, this certainly has a place for a cohort of patients.”
Dr Jones was quick to warn that the RACGP would not support a program which had no intent to notify the primary GP of telehealth consultations. “The danger is it can take off on its own,” he said.
Chair of the ReadyCare Clinical Advisory Panel Christopher Mitchell said that Telstra had flagged its support of continuity and the service intended to notify primary GPs of an external telehealth consultation.
Dr Mitchell said ReadyCare offered a “mature solution” to reducing the requirement for face- to-face consultations, as long as the high quality of care from the Swiss model transposed to Telstra’s solution.
“It’s really important that it’s a high-quality service. What Telstra has done is basically purchased the MedGate solution and is ensuring it’s appropriate to the Australian context,” Dr Mitchell said.
He said the MedGate solution had a very well structured training program, as well as a software solution which ensured GPs had a workflow for the telehealth consultation. “They’ve got a quality review process built around that,” Dr Mitchell said.
“They analyse outcomes in a way that certainly in Australia I haven’t seen done.”
He said Telstra’s intent to build an employed model would be made available to regular GPs on a subscription model “if they can prove its effectiveness in the Australian context.”
“I think that’s a very exciting opportunity for Australia’s GPs,” Dr Mitchell said.
The telecommunications provider has invested more than $130 million into health ventures to date. It’s first healthcare product, MyCare Manager, launched in April and uses real-time monitoring of health devices and video conferencing to treat long-term health conditions.
The ReadyCare product assimilates into Telstra’s developing health brand, Telstra Health, alongside its recent acquisition of Medibank Private’s Anywhere Healthcare network, which provides virtual access to specialists via referral.
Mr Liubinskas said Telstra’s healthcare ventures could ultimately work to support each other with ReadyCare GPs providing referrals to Anywhere Healthcare specialists.