Patients get ‘Well’ with revolutionary new app

Healthcare professionals to help patients get ‘Well’ with revolutionary new app

Healthcare professionals can manage their services, view medical records and communicate with patients online using a revolutionary new app.

‘Well’ has been developed by Christchurch company Webtools and will be a ‘game changer’ for the healthcare industry.

With a familiar, easy-to-use interface, ‘Well’ can be used to send and fill out forms, book and pay for appointments, set-up medication reminders and much more.

Using FHIR – Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources – Application Programming Interfaces, it can connect with other patient management systems such as a GP, hospital and surgical systems.

Integration trials are already in place with Orion Medical Systems and Incisive Medical Systems, which allow the app to pull down patient information to be viewed by a health professional or the patient themselves.

Webtools managing director Brett O’Donnell says that while healthcare providers have their own computer systems to store information, they often do not share it with others involved in the patient’s care, or with the patients themselves.

Many allied health professionals run their businesses on spreadsheets and do not have access to relevant patient data or effective ways to communicate with their clients.

Using FHIR integrations, ‘Well’ can give all health professionals a fuller picture of a patient’s medical history, allowing them to provide the best care possible. The app also empowers patients to take control over their health data and become more active in their health care.

“It’s is a real game-changer and the first of its kind,” O’Donnell says.

The app’s familiar interface has a notification screen reminding patients of appointments they have coming up or forms they need to fill out. Providers can push out questionnaires and feedback forms, or even recommend a video for the patient to watch.

The appointments section allows patients to book and pay for appointments, see past and future appointments with all of their health providers and view any results or documents related to those appointments.

Within ‘medication’, patients can see any prescriptions they have - both medical and ‘green’ – and can enter in any non-prescribed medication with reminders to take it. This information is shared back to their health professional.

The app also allows patients to manage their health data, such as entering their blood pressure or other readings from their own devices.

O’Donnell says the Webtools team is keen to hear from interested health providers while ‘Well’ is in the pre-market sate.

“We want to generate interest so that physios, dieticians and other allied health staff talk to us to ensure the functionality we’ve built works for them,” he says.

Corporate wellness specialist Sarah McGuinness has been trialling the app as part of a new health coaching business.

She says ‘Well’ is great because it is simple and secure and allows coaches to regularly communicate with their clients.

With the person’s consent, coaches will also be able to draw down some basic health information such as recent BMI and blood pressure readings.

“I’ve been doing health coaching face-to-face, but I knew the better way was to go online. I looked all over the world for a piece of software, but I couldn’t find it until ‘Well’ came along,” she says.

Incisive Medical Systems director Sinclair Hughes says specialists could use ‘Well’ to communicate with patients, such as sending them notifications or forms to fill out prior to surgeries.

He says it is becoming increasingly common and accepted for patients to request copies of documents produced by their surgical teams.

Specialists who choose to use it will make ‘published documents’, such as letters or treatment reports, available to view via the ‘Well’ app.

“It could be a game changer in the way that interoperability is made available,” Hughes says.

Well can also be white-labelled and implemented as a standalone patient management system and customer mobile app, including customisation to meet specific requirements.

Health professionals pay a monthly fee to use ‘Well’ and it is free to patients. The app will be launched in the Apple iTunes and Google Play stores by the end of this year.

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