What is linkedcare?
linkedcare is a novel communication and information service for the health sector focussed initially on two main actors: the patient and the doctor. It will also link other actors in the sector to the same platform in the future to make processes in health care - p. ex. when we go to a doctor's appointment and everything that follows this appointment - more fluid, faster, and less cumbersome. For more detailed information on the many functionalities of linkedcare please consult www.linkedcare.com in detail or visit our facebook- or linkedIn-pages.
How can I sign up to linkedcare?
You just need to go to www.linkedcare.com then click on the top right corner of the screen and you'll find the sign-up form. Please fill in the form with all the details requested. Your credentials as a doctor need to be verified with the relevant health authorities to make sure that everybody registered as a doctor on linkedcare is actually a doctor and authorized to practice. Once you have submitted the sign-up-form we will verify your information and cross-check and once we have positive confirmation your account will be fully activated. linkedcare will notify you as soon as your account is fully activated.
What does linkedcare mean in practice for the doctor and for the citizen?
linkedcare significantly reduces the workload of the doctor. Starting with booking consultations, via the possibility of having video consultations with your patients, the automatic classification of health conditions according to ICD-10, issuing prescriptions electronically, and much more.It means that citizens have the possibility to interact with all the information related to their health on their mobile phone, their tablet, or their computer. This allows for a completely different degree of interaction and interoperability than if they keep their records somewhere in their home and on paper.
How will linkedcare help patients?
As already said, patients will have all their health related information at hand at all times. This will save time but - most importantly - it will enable caregivers (doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, pharmacists, etc.) to get the information they need quickly and in the right format to be able to provide quick response to the patients needs,
What advantages will linkedcare carry for doctors and other medical personnel?
linkedcare will streamline all processes between the doctors and the patient - and not only. This starts with booking consultations online, goes via the diagnosis (the process to determine the clinical condition of the patient) including the anamnese, prescription of additional tests and analysis and / or medication and ends with support to the follow-up of the patient.
What difference does the linkedcare app make?
It is very simple. All the information will be in one place. The clinical history of the patient, the medication prescribed (and in most cases also the results of the treatment), clinical records, lab analysis, etc. On top of it, the information is stored in a secure place in the cloud and cannot be retrieved by unauthorized personnel. This means that neither the patient nor the doctor can 'lose' the information. They can get access via their mobile phones, their tablets, or their computer - and this is valid for patients and doctors. We estimate that around 35-50% of the time used for consultations is spent on such bureaucratic tasks and that with linkedcare this may be reduced significantly to less than 15%. Much of this gain in productivity is due to the way linkedcare has been built which enables it to interact with the data from different sources on a real-time basis, e.g. warnings of incompatibilities between different medications prescribed to the same patient will be appearing in real-time.
Will patients need to see doctors in their office if they have linkedcare?
There are several - actually many tools - that help us achieve this objective. Scheduling of appointments is supported by linkedcare since it provides multiple calendar functionalities, from booking to reminders, etc. The SOAP process which is internationally recognized as the most appropriate for consultations has been digitized and guidance is now possible directly from the computer with all actions/information duly and automatically documented. Prescriptions will be done electronically and automatically linked to the home delivery service (if available). Lab results, imaging documents, etc. will be stored in the patients linkedcare account and will remain available for as long as deemed necessary. All the information will be in one place and it can be shared with the patient and/or with other doctors that the patient may be consulting with (e.g. hospitals).
