Merivale Medical Centre is a buzzing practice on New Zealand’s South Island with around 6,500 registered patients. They have eight doctors, three nurses, one health care assistant and an administration team of four that are all dedicated to delivering superior health outcomes for their patients.
THE SITUATION
Merivale Medical Centre (Merivale) had been using Medtech32 for as long as anyone can remember. In early 2019 they decided to upgrade to Medtech Evolution and Practice Manager Helen Nesbit, was responsible for the upgrade.
“We didn’t take too much time looking at alternative solutions, the other offerings are just trying to do what Medtech has been doing really well for a very long time, there is no point reinventing the wheel,” says Helen Nesbit, Practice Manager.
THE SOLUTION
In March 2019 Merivale upgraded to Evolution and soon after adopted MMH EasyBookings to provide patients with the convenience to book appointments online. “After looking at Evolution we realised it would provide us with some key functionality that would reduce costs and streamline our workflows.”
Another reason Merivale chose to stay with Medtech, is that finding staff and doctors with Medtech experience is quite simple because the systems are so widely used across New Zealand.
The upgrade was smooth for Merivale, Medtech converted all of the data across to Evolution and then set up the system over the weekend which meant there was no down time for the practice. “I was really impressed with the upgrade process; it was much smoother than we expected”.
Training was done at the Practice and users were able to transition across effortlessly due to the similarities between the two systems. “The trainers were fantastic, I couldn’t fault them, they are were really supportive and knowledgeable,” said Helen. “When I need people to fill-in, it’s always easy to source staff with Medtech experience, because most people in the health sector have used it.”
THE BENEFITS
Prior to the upgrade Merivale were using a 3rd party tool to send SMS reminders which was costing hundreds of dollars per month. “Switching to Evolution means we are able to use Evolution SMS which is a fraction of the cost of the previous SMS system we were using.”
The practice has achieved further savings with a reduction in printing and postage costs. Patient accounts can now be sent via SMS and soon the practice will move to emailing statements. “Not having to physically mail patient accounts each month is saving us both time and money, it’s all managed within Evolution.”
The admin team and Doctors all like Evolution’s user interface and appreciate the ability to see more on screen. They particularly like the ability to scroll back through their history, Medtech32 only tracked the last 10 records. “I love how simple it is to navigate in Evolution.”
“The function keys are the same between Medtech32 and Evolution, which made the transition to Evolution really smooth for users, if we couldn’t find something in Evolution, we can use the function keys that we are all familiar with.”
The Evolution App has been well received, Doctors in particular appreciate the ability to be able to check their Appointment Book and Inbox before they arrive at the practice. “The App saves us time too, if a patient needs a script urgently and the doctor has left for the day, it’s a simple process for the doctor to generate the prescription through the Evolution App, without having to come back to the practice,” says Helen.
To ensure they could access the system from anywhere and at anytime Merivale decided to go with the cloud deployment option for Evolution. Being cloud based means that the system can be accessed from any device and from any room in the practice. Previously certain tasks had to be performed on a workstation in a particular room, now the admin team are able to perform all tasks from any workstation, in any room of the Practice, which is more convenient and efficient.
SUMMARY
It’s only been a few months since the upgrade occurred and Merivale are already experiencing time and cost savings. They recently implemented the EasyBooking, online booking feature and are now introducing patients to the convenience of booking online, it is expected that this functionality will deliver even more productivity savings.
