Dr Carol Head

As a practitioner of holistic medicine in Phillip Island, Victoria, Dr Carol Head needed a clinical and practice management system that was easy to use with limited support staff.

Helix, a true cloud solution by MedicalDirector, gives Dr Head the robust solution to support her daily workflow, without the hassle of maintaining servers or manual software updates.

Background

Dr Carol Head is a general practitioner and author of ‘Holistic Medicine – Beyond the Physical,’ which explores the theory and practice of holistic medicine and how people can learn how to heal themselves.

In September 2018, Dr Head began working as an Integrative General Practitioner at Safflower Chinese Medicine Clinic in Phillip Island, where she also practices alternative medicine, holistic medicine and laser acupuncture.

The Challenge

Working without a practice manager, a large IT support staff or the physical space for maintaining large servers, Dr Head was on the hunt for a solution she could get up and running easily.

"I didn’t want a server-based solution because I’d need a bigger system to store and support everything,” she explained. “And because our practice is on the island, we just don’t have the capacity for a large team of IT support, or big server rooms - we just use desktops. So, I wanted something cloud to make things easier."

Dr Head turned to Helix, by MedicalDirector, as it was the only true cloud solution available designed specifically for GPs. And because the software is hosted on the cloud, it doesn’t need physical servers, making it even more practical for practitioners with minimal support resources.

"I found other cloud software, but it wasn’t tailored to GPs – for instance, you couldn’t write scripts and it wouldn’t support investigations," Dr Head said.

"With Helix, I can enjoy similar efficiencies to server-based clinical and practice management solutions, but without needing a whole cohort of practice managers, IT support staff and servers to get up and hit the ground running.”

The Results

Once implementing Helix, Dr Head also enjoyed a good clinical workflow and billing system, especially as she doesn’t have a practice manager and needs to do a lot of processing herself.

"I don’t have a practice manager, so I need a system that can easily process batching and transmitting,” she said. “The billing also flows easily from Helix to our receptionist."

And unlike server-based solutions, that need manual updates, Dr Head found she has peace of mind with Helix’s automatic updates that occur in the cloud.

"What’s great about a cloud system like Helix is that all updates are automatic, you don’t have to think about it, it doesn’t distract you or interrupt your workflow.”

"You can get on with your working day and you don’t have to worry about the security and maintenance of server storage and backups," she added. "And any support I needed for Helix, I received quickly and easily from my implementation manager at MedicalDirector."