Capita Healthcare Decisions’ TeleGuides clinical content set and Decision Management System (DMS) is now powering a national telephone triage service which offers health advice to thousands of Australians each month. The telephone triage service is managed by Healthdirect Australia, established by the Council of Australian Governments to deliver a range of services to offer every Australian 24/7 access to trusted health advice.
Healthdirect Australia contracted Medibank – a national provider of healthcare solutions and health insurance services in Australia – to deliver and operate the telephone triage service. Capita was selected for its decision support software and clinical content. Capita has worked closely with Medibank to localise the clinical content set specifically for the Australian market.
DMS helps clinicians make decisions regarding the next steps of care required for the patient by taking them through a sophisticated decision pathway process based on the answers given to symptom based questions. According to the answers given, and other information that may already be known, the clinician suggests appropriate next steps. Information gathering and direction to the next stage of care is quick and consistent, making the patient journey faster, safer and better.
As part of this project, Capita’s DMS software was integrated with a third party Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. DMS has an open Application Programming Interface (API) allowing integration with a range of other technologies including Microsoft and SAP. Medibank is also using DMS and TeleGuides for a range of other clients in Australia who require 24×7 health advice from registered nurses and GPs.
Since July 2015, the software and content have enabled clinicians to deliver safe, consistent telephone triage to more than 2,000 callers every day. The majority of callers (52%) are ringing to discuss their own symptoms, while a third of callers are mothers ringing up about their child, with 29% of such calls relating to children aged 0-4.
Dermot Roche, Medibank’s General Manager of Telephone, Online & Population Health said: “The partnership with Capita has already proved to be a great success – the feedback we have had from clinicians using the system has been excellent. The fact that the software can be deployed in market leading CRM systems means there has been lots of interest from our clients throughout Australia. Importantly, we have deployed the integrated CRM and clinical decision support system to over 500 clinical staff who work from their homes, operate 24×7 and ensure that over 80% of calls are answered within 20 seconds, delivering both a clinically safe a very satisfying patient experience.”
Maureen Robinson, General Manager of Clinical Governance for Healthdirect Australia talks about the service: “Capita’s software enables clinicians handling calls to quickly and safely triage the patient – and direct them to the next stage of care. More than 2000 people a day are using the service and being directed to the most appropriate health service based on the severity and urgency of their health issue”
