Telemedicine: “virtual medical tourism” Susan Helliwell, CEO PRAXES Medical group
PRAXES Medical Group Improve health care delivery while simultaneously reducing costs and risk.
PRAXES Clients • Canadian Navy • Canadian Coast Guard • Mount Everest Climbing Teams • Offshore Oil & Gas • Remote medical clinics • Fishing fleets • Prisons • Emergency incident response – Swissair disaster, White Juan blizzard • Search and Rescue teams
Services Providing integrated services for corporate and government clients (since 1997): • Telemedicine by Emergency Physicians (EMdoc) • Health Staffing services • Occupational Health services
Telemedicine EMdoc • Canada’s premier telemedicine service for industry • 24/7 access to a medical opinion & management of injury/illness • 5 minute response guarantee • ISO 9001:2008 certified OHdoc (in development) • Access to OH specialists for help managing workplace health issues • Get employees back to work quickly
Telemedicine as Medical Tourism? • Medical tourism = receiving medical care in another jurisdiction. • Telemedicine = “virtual” medical tourism. • We already provide this for industrial clients – they get remote access to resources not available at their work location. • Easily transferrable to the public health sector.
Occupational Health • 62% of Canadian adults work • Family doctors get a total of 6 hours of OH training in their entire medical education. • Patients don’t care what makes them sick – they just want to get better. • Employers will have to manage more health issues for employees, as public system is unable to manage workplace health issues – this is a business issue.
What is OH? • Workplace health and safety audits • Health surveillance programs – Make sure work environment is not making workers sick. • Regulatory & non regulatory medical exams – Seafarers, diving, aviation, CAPP, etc. • Fitness to work assessments • Health promotion programs – flu shots a workplace – Healthy back programs • Workplace Health staffing – e.g. RN on site. • Immunizations • Travel health • Drug and alcohol testing
Quality management How do we ensure we deliver quality services? • Hire staff with right medical qualifications • Ensure that staff have the right customer service attitude • EMwerx software to manage schedules, provide electronic medical records. • EMwerx software ensures compliance with standards, measures response times.
EMwerx Software . • Software to manage: – Remote Medical events + medical records – Emergency events – Employee credentials and training – Scheduling – Assets
Benefits to Customers Our clients have experienced: • Better on-site care and reduced costs of transporting ill/injured workers offsite (e.g. vessel diversions, medevacs, ambulance transfers, etc). • Greater workforce satisfaction with pro-active health and safety management • Lower WCB premium costs due to: – Reduced Lost Time incidents & improved management of injuries – Improved pre-work & return to work fitness assessments . • Lower operating costs from electronic records management system • Compliance with Canadian medical standards and credentials requirements.
Opportunities for Atlantic Canada • Great health expertise here – Halifax is already a “Centre of excellence” for Atlantic Canada. • Urbanization trend - opportunity to service rural patients using remote healthcare tools, such as telemedicine + use of alternate care providers. • Oldest population in Canada – if we figure it out, we can export it!
Challenges • Need to spend more money on the other 11 determinants of health! • 13 jurisdictions – 13 colleges, 13 licenses – we need a national telemedicine license to allow more interprovinical consultations. • Need to get more doctors/health teams using technologies to serve patients in new ways
12 Determinants of Health 1. Income and Social 7. Personal Health Status Practices and Coping Skills 2. Social Support Networks 8. Healthy Child Development 3. Education 9. Biology and Genetic 4. Employment and Endowment Working Conditions 10.Health Services 5. Social Environments 11.Gender 6. Physical Environments 12.Culture
Testimonial “….PRAXES has helped us be innovators in health and safety by simultaneously improving our "at sea" medical support and reducing injury costs. With their technology we have not only reduced the number of expensive vessel diversions, we have significantly improved our ranking with WCB and saved in excess of $500,000 annually." Colin MacDonald, CEO, Clearwater Fine Foods Inc.
Thank you! Susan Helliwell, CEO shelliwell@praxes.ca (902) 420-9725 x 201 www.praxes.ca
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