With the formation of integrated care systems last year, the importance of clear communications from healthcare services is greater than ever. Patients need to know who they are seeing, where, when and how they are seeing them, what is happening with their data and where they are on their pathway – and, crucially, they need to be able to engage with their clinical team in a manner that is simple and easy to follow.

Technology can support that. It can increase access, offer more choice for patients and speed up processes, and there are plenty of positives from the clinician’s side as well; for example, many services note benefits of virtual appointments such as reduced did-not-attend rates and the ability to quickly fill cancellation gaps at the last minute.

Familiarity,  is key. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Microsoft has called Teams “a staple in our everyday lives”. At OX.DH, our solution is built on top of the Microsoft platform – our virtual consultation capabilities are built as Teams plug-ins, so patients can access their consultation from any device on a browser, without the need to download the Teams app or any other app. Clinicians, too, can connect with their patient from within their native Teams environment.

So if you’re looking for a technology to use to support patient engagement and communication within your ICS, why not just use Teams?

Teams is a great solution, but OX.DH’s technology closes a lot of the gaps that are in native Teams to make it clinically safe, secure and usable in healthcare settings. Our solution can be split into different components to suit specific organisational needs, so it’s engineered to be scalable. Each component offers a range of functionalities, designed to improve patient experience and outcomes, whilst reducing friction – virtual consultations, patient referrals, consent gathering and more.

Our components are built directly into Microsoft’s Azure environment, so they are secure by design and default. Microsoft invests billions of dollars on a yearly basis to improve their services. As their partner, we benefit from those improvements too – and as our partner, so could you.

We place strong focus on integration. As part of the NHS Technology Innovation Framework, OX.DH is integrating with a wide range of resources across the NHS ecosystem. There’s also the national tenant to consider, with the NHS placing a huge amount of investment into the partnership with Microsoft. It’s an ongoing commitment, and by choosing OX.DH, you can maximise and leverage that commitment, rather than becoming restrained by it.

Richard Billam, deputy director of ICT at Barnsley Hospital NHS Trust, said it best when he described how the trust utilised OX.DH technology for their virtual consultations. “We met the OX.DH team for a demo. Whilst they were providing the demo, I looked at the national tenant and added OX.DH onto our Teams account,” Richard said. “Within an hour, we actually got the solution working with preconfigured settings. It let me create an appointment and send it out to somebody via SMS and email. We tested it on different platforms and found it to be seamless.”

Richard added that when the solution was demonstrated to the clinicians at the trust, they said, “‘Wow, is that it?’ They are impressed at how simple it really is.”

For patients, he described the system as “really intuitive”. We believe that putting the patient at the heart of what we do is a vital part of providing a health tech solution. That’s why we support patients with choice and flexibility, and we strive to put their data in their hands wherever possible. 

Ultimately, we simplify the technology landscape with easy-to-use functionality and a focus on collaboration with our partners. We offer a consistent, scalable solution that is easy to adopt across the ICB – because many of your staff members are likely already using Teams.

To find out more about OX.DH, please click here.