Scottish practice goes live with iPlato

iPlato Healthcare has implemented iPlato Patient Care Messaging in Scotland for the first time.

The Dunbar Medical Centre in East Lothian has launched the web-based system, which integrates with GP systems and enables fully automated appointment reminders and targeted group messaging.

Its two practices hope to reduce waiting times for GP appointments and to enable GP-led, personalised and timely public health promotion.

In a statement, the centre’s partners said: “We are pleased to have the opportunity to pilot this service on behalf of East Lothian Community Health Partnership, to see if we can improve communication between practice and patients.

“It should make it easier to remind our patients when check-ups are due, and so lead to improved care for long-term conditions which need regular review.

"Receiving reminders is free of charge to the patient. We encourage all our patients to hand in their mobile phone number to us so that they can benefit from this service.”

Last year around 124,000 people missed a hospital or GP appointment across NHS Lothian.

Tobias Alpsten, managing director at iPlato, said: “Launching in Lothian with two of the practices at the Dunbar Medical Centre is a big, long term, opportunity for us but also for patients, healthcare professionals and payers in Scotland.

“Across a patient population comparable to Scotland’s, iPlato Patient Care Messaging freed up more than 100,000 GP appointments last year through SMS cancellations alone.

Based on our experiences elsewhere, iPlato Patient Care Messaging should be able to save NHS Scotland more than 200,000 GP appointments per year if deployed nationally.”

Link: iPlato