New Zealand-listed primary care provider Green Cross Health is moving towards virtual care with the launch of its new consumer health app.
WHAT IT DOES
According to a media release, The Doctors app allows users to seamlessly connect with their GPs. It also provides access to their health summary and allows booking appointments, requesting repeat prescriptions, messaging their primary care team, and attending virtual consultations.
Webtools CEO Harry Hawke added that the app comes with native iOS and Android integrations, including biometrics for authentication, accessibility features, and calendar integration.
The app is powered by Centrik, the connected care platform of local health tech company Webtools Health, which enables the app’s integration across Green Cross Health’s network of 58 medical centres. Centrik adheres to international health data standards like FHIR and connects with Medtech Evolution and 32 as a Medtech ALEX partner.
WHY IT MATTERS
Green Cross Health was looking for a “user-friendly and frictionless” technology to modernise patient experience. “If patients log in and find it too clunky, or they can’t figure out how to use it, they will opt out. Then that investment is meaningless, and we’re stuck providing old-fashioned limited access to care and clogged phone lines,” said Wayne Woolrich, its general manager for Medical.
Rolling out The Doctors app, the company said, is the first step to realise its vision of a fully integrated care ecosystem. It’s now on its way to offering “seamless” virtual care, which extends across its three divisions: medical, pharmacy and community care, and outside the group to allied health and specialist care providers.
“Soon patients will have the ultimate in choice through the app – to book an in-person or virtual appointment with their preferred GP through to booking a casual consult on HouseCall,” Woolrich added.
THE LARGER TREND
Launched in March, Centrik comprises several modules that connect the various stakeholders of the health ecosystem. It was spun off by Webtools last year after securing extra seed funding.
At present, Centrik is helping connect about 350,000 patients in New Zealand with their doctors through partnerships with Better Health Group, Waitaha Primary Health, Phoenix Healthcare Group, Queenstown Medical Centre, and now Green Cross Health.
ON THE RECORD
“Having an app or patient portal is something we wholeheartedly believe in. It’s one of the ways we know gives our patients better access to their health care, and it relieves the [administrative] burden and cuts down on phone calls coming into the practice for appointments, scripts and lab test results. In the long term, it means that processes are more efficient and teams can focus more on delivering best-practice patient care,” Woolrich said.
