Coasters to get mobile reminders from doctors
Monday 12 November 2012, 7:00PM
By Shine Group
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Coasters are set to receive mobile messages from their General Practice for appointment, screening and immunisation reminders in an initiative designed to better connect General Practioners and their patients and improve population health.
The West Coast PHO, in collaboration with the Canterbury District Health Board and Pegasus Health in Christchurch, will be offering Vensa Health’s TXT2Remind practice-patient messaging system, to General Practices in South Westland, Greymouth and the Buller region.
Anthony Cooke, CEO of the West Coast PHO is excited by opportunities this initiative can provide. “TXT2Remind is a great tool for engaging with a geographically spread enrolled population, and will help to improve health outcomes by maximizing patient/doctor time and reducing the level of missed appointments. A more targeted approach to specific health needs, such as diabetes, smoking cessation and heart health can also be achieved. I would like to thank Pegasus Health and CDHB for their help, and support in this project.”
General Practioner Dr. Carol Atmore the Medical Director for the West Coast PHO and Chief Medical Officer for the West Coast District Health Boards says, “TXT2Remind helps ensure more patients attend the appointments they need at the right time to stay well in their community. Using the system GPs can be very proactive and effectively target priority health areas such as immunisations for 8 month olds or better diabetes services. When sending screening or immunisation reminders, they can also include information about why these appointments are important.”
The system will be free of charge across General Practices in the South Westland, Greymouth and Buller regions that provide primary health services to over 31,000 enrolled patients.
Ahmad Jubbawey, Chief Executive of Vensa Health says, “TXT2Remind helps ensure more patients attend the appointments they need at the right time. Seeing patients in their community in a primary healthcare setting means less people will end up in hospital beds due to not getting early intervention. mHealth initiatives like this are vital for service integration, they also deliver real savings to the healthcare system and peoples wellness, so everybody wins.”