Downs Rural Medical

As a fast growing rural and regional medical practice, Downs Rural Medical needed a scalable and sustainable healthcare ecosystem to streamline workflow and appointments, in order to free up time to focus on the complexities of rural health treatments and procedures.

Background

Queensland-based Downs Rural Medical is a general practice dedicated to delivering patient-centric care to the rural and regional communities of Oakey, Kingsthorpe, Toowoomba and surrounds.

All-encompassing, timely care is what the doctors at Downs Rural Medical strive to deliver, with an extensive team of doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and reception staff dedicated to providing compassionate, confidential and high-quality health services.

Dr John Hall, Downs Rural Medical’s Practice Principal, said the practice offers a wide range of services to meet the healthcare demands of the rural and regional area, including women’s health, vasectomies, chronic disease, skin cancer medicine and emergency care.

"Our healthcare practitioners have a broad skill set and our point of difference is being that one stop shop for rural health in the region. We service a very broad demographic."

The Challenge

Since the inception of the practice in 2007, Downs Rural Medical has used both Clinical and Pracsoft by MedicalDirector as their go-to practice management solution. The practice wanted to leverage MedicalDirector’s partner solutions to even further streamline their busy practice, boost patient engagement and enhance their digital footprint.

"I was initially concerned about how software solutions could work or articulate together, but after integrating HotDoc into our existing solution, we were very pleased with how everything integrated so seamlessly," Dr Hall said. "We’ve been pleasantly surprised how well it all works, and it’s a very good, robust solution with all our patient data going to the right place. We’ve also been impressed with the way in which appointments can be booked and managed across the MedicalDirector / Pracsoft platform and its integration with HotDoc."

The Solution

In 2017, Downs Rural Medical decided to integrate the online appointment platform, HotDoc, to its existing Clinical and Pracsoft ecosystem.

"Having HotDoc integrated with MedicalDirector & Pracsoft has been a real game changer. It’s revolutionised our practice, had a positive impact on streamlining the patient booking process, helped increase the number of new patients and improve our overall digital footprint and online presence. With the online booking option, we’ve also noticed a significant reduction in the burden on reception."

As the practice has gotten to know the software better and is utilising more of HotDoc’s functions, Dr Hall said they’ve uncovered even more efficiencies, particularly at the recall stage.

"The recall function has alleviated a significant amount of administrative burden for both our nursing and reception staff, even after a few months of using the recall function," he explained.

Downs Rural Medical has also enjoying the automated patient confirmation function, as reception have fewer phone calls to make to confirm appointments.

"Reception has also given us positive feedback that the new integrated system is user-friendly and stress-free," Dr Hall said.

"I would recommend Pracsoft, Clinical and HotDoc as a combined solution because they integrate seamlessly and increase efficiency when it comes to booking and following up patients."