The current crisis has seen the adoption of digital services faster than ever before and it has proved that in many cases, remote care that’s supported by digital tools can be just as effective as traditional care when seeking to maximise patient engagement. From the moment a patient registers at a practice or hospital to post-treatment, there are a number of interchange points along the way that are key to delivering a positive patient experience. These range from arrival and check-in to engagement during treatment, post-care and telehealth.
Jayex acknowledges that patients who feel engaged and positive about their care are more satisfied and generally experience superior outcomes.
Digital tools mitigate the logistical challenges like organising patient files, appointment management, reporting etc., for staff working remotely. Many cloud-based patient engagement solutions bring a whole host of tools together in one place. Cloud-based digital platforms like Jayex online patient records, appointment booking, campaign management, and more can be accessed from anywhere. The fast adoption of these tools can be attributed to their quick integration with existing Practice Management systems. Moreover, the ability for patients to book online, request scripts and referrals, receive healthcare information and consult with their doctors remotely, reduces the risks of exposure for both staff and patients in the Practice.
If the recent upheavals have taught us anything, it’s that digital technology can be a vital resource in the modern waiting room.
How we handle healthcare has changed irrefutably and benefits of digital care are set to extend far beyond the current crisis and will remain a significant part of healthcare long after it’s over. Acting as the bridge between practice and patient, Jayex provides the Healthcare industry with advanced systems that maximise patient engagement and make patient management, workflow and communication easier, more efficient and more effective. Learn more about Jayex’s complete patient engagement platform.
Leading practice business analytics platform, Cubiko, releases a free dashboard to help practices continue patient care and manage the business impact of COVID-19.
Brisbane-based start-up, Cubiko, is releasing Cubiko Assist, a free distilled version of its main Practice intelligence software, to help Australian healthcare practices deal with the impact of COVID-19 and to reduce avoidable hospital admissions.
The pandemic has created a range of pressures for Practices including collapsing revenue as patients stay away (meaning some miss out on vital care), reduced income due to bulk billing arrangements for telehealth, unmanageable workload in some practices and workforce difficulties when staff are in quarantine or isolation.
‘It’s definitely not business as usual – it’s practice management in a pandemic,’ says Cubiko CEO, Chris Smeed. ‘We knew practices would need different tools for that. So we asked what they needed and then we built Cubiko Assist.’
Cubiko Assist enables Practices to identify and continue treating patients with high care needs to prevent them crash landing in hospital. It provides insights that equip Practices to make best use of available staff and resources, identifying the billing impact of lockdown measures and telehealth appointments. It also ensures coverage for upcoming appointments despite changes in doctors’ availability due to being quarantined or homeschooling children.
Cubiko Assist is designed to ensure there is no extra work, or spreadsheets or uploads required. The data is automated and integrates seamlessly with Bp Premier.
Many practices have already registered for the new software, which will roll out in April and be free for the next 6 months or until the pandemic is over.
‘It’s our contribution to fighting COVID-19,’ explains Smeed. ‘We can’t do what the doctors and practice managers on the frontline do. But we can equip them to do it well by giving them easy access to meaningful data so they can respond to COVID-19’s unprecedented impact on their practice.’
Cubiko Assist is proudly backed by a growing partnership that includes AAPM, AGPAL, Microsoft, Splice Marketing and Best Practice Software. These companies have galvanised around Cubiko Assist and committed to providing practices with insights and support to find effective responses to their Practice metrics.
Cubiko is a leading Practice business analytics platform, effortlessly combining all a Practice’s different data sources – Bp Premier, Xero and Tanda – into one easy-to-use platform to simplify task prioritisation, process improvement and profit growth.
Human-centred design and co-design are becoming the standard terms used when designing customer focused solutions. In fact, co-design is no longer used as tech company lingo, but it’s an approach increasingly used in the public sector. Just go to any medical industry conference and it’s difficult to avoid seeing a presentation that hasn’t been derived from a co-design approach.
So why is a human-centred design approach so important? One of the key mottos at Best Practice Software is ‘designed by a doctor, for a doctor’. This is a key pillar of our organisation. The key purpose of these design concepts is to better understand the evolving needs of your customers and the new challenges that come along with it. We strive to ensure that we address the correct needs of our customers as we build our next generation product, Titanium.
Medical software is an industry that has experienced rapid technological advancement. This transformation is only going to accelerate as we not only adopt cloud-based technology but all the latest advancements that come along with it such as mobile applications, shared health records, e-prescriptions, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality and virtual health care services.
Speaking to Our Customers
In software development it is easy to become too feature focused instead of stopping for a moment to re-evaluate the problems we want to solve. Customers have always been at the heart of what we do at Best Practice Software and it has always been important to us to take our user-centered approach to another level with the development of our next generation of products, code-named “Titanium”. So, we decided to go out, speak to customers and listen to what they had to say about the challenges, problems and pain points that they face day-in and day-out in their practices.
We invited customers to a roadshow called “Connect and Evolve” and the purpose was literally to connect with our customers and discuss the evolving needs of their practices. In these sessions it was important to not start with designing solutions and features but to begin by listing out all daily, tasks, activities and routine work. We then started to establish problem statements and listing out time consuming tasks. After that we started to figure out ideal workflows and solutions to address these issues by putting all limitations aside in the technology that we use today.
We ended up with a tremendous amount of insight and feedback not only on the current needs of practices but also on the desired future state of working whether you are a provider, receptionist, a nurse or a practice manager. We are using this feedback in our product roadmap for Titanium and we have continued to speak to even more of our customers by showing prototypes and possible solutions to improve our day to day working life.
Understanding the Real Problems
One of the unique aspects in medical software is that users spend the entire day using the product. As a comparison, if you use marketing software, you only use it for parts of the day or in increments throughout a working day. In medical software you might not leave your screen all day, so designing a solution that understands these needs is absolutely critical.
As our industry and working environments continue to evolve rapidly, we also need to recognise and understand the changing needs and challenges that come with change. This may sound like an obvious statement but in order to drive innovation, it’s necessary to find a way to break the norm by introducing new ways of doing things. This is not an easy task when you speak to users that understandably do not want a disruption in their workflows. The last thing you want to do is force features down the throats of customers whether they like them or not. You need to give them value by delivering better usability, saving time, solving problems and ultimately helping them in improving patient care.
Applying New Technology and Prototyping
Does new technology solve old problems or does new technology create new problems? The reality is probably a bit of both. For instance, moving into cloud-based technology solves a lot of problems. It offers always-on technology available to any location you want to work out of and usually for any device you want to use it with, whether desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile. However, it also introduces a whole layer of complexity with the unknowns of having a stable internet connection, data security and using a browser instead of an application built for an operating system.
We help address these things through rapid prototyping, user testing, and agile development methodologies in our product design. We also conduct a significant amount of market research and learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of others in the industry. There are usually several different solutions or approaches to address a problem. The key is figuring out which is the most appropriate or most promising option to take or technology to choose from. We then prototype, speak to users, test with users, refine the solution, do the development work and complete the feature. For instance, the architecture of Titanium has been completely built from scratch using the latest API-agnostic platform structure to improve development time, scalability, cost efficiency and enabling more third party integrations for Practices.
Gathering feedback from our customers is a job that is never done. We are continuing to ramp up our development work on Titanium with a strong focus on customer experience (CX) and user experience (UX) by actively involving our Practice customers throughout the product design process. It’s a process that starts with the users and ends in a product built to address the current and future needs of our customers.
We value the input of our customers. If you have suggestions for functionality within Titanium, please share your feedback in our Forum, which can be found in the top menu bar of this website.
Authored by: Henry Vesander Product Manager at Best Practice Software
Cubiko seamlessly integrates with Bp Premier, to allow Practices to quickly and easily filter and interpret large amounts of data, to enable evidence-based decision making. Cubiko combines data sets to facilitate enhanced reporting and evidence-based decision making for Australian Practices. Dashboard insights allow change to be tracked and monitored to ensure desired results are achieved through an easy to understand, intuitive platform.
Popular Cubiko Metrics
Since Cubiko’s launch in October 2019, the platform has been gaining momentum across the country. Subscribers have embraced new, progressive ways of driving business insight into their Practice every day.
In this feature, we’ll show you some popular metrics that detail how subscribers are transforming their Practices through leveraging the power of their data.
Busiest Booking Time
Cubiko quickly shows the busiest time when the Practice reception team and online booking engine are making appointments in the Diary.
Unbilled Appointments Metric
Early on, Practices were adopting a new focus on data, specifically around the identification of unbilled appointments.
Through this metric, Practices can monitor any unbilled appointments, complete the billing and effectively track as the number of unbilled appointments reduces over time.
10997 Eligible Patients Metric
This metric makes it easier for nurses to provide every opportunity for care. Provide your nurses with a list of today’s patients who qualify for 10997, with a deeper view on appointment data and time per patient.
Special Offer
Between now and 22nd May, Cubiko are offering all new subscribers a $500 credit towards getting Cubiko set-up and running in your practice.
Our biennial Bp Premier Summit is just around the corner, and we are extremely proud of this year’s speaker line-up and list of topics. We’ve delivered ten more workshops than 2017, for a total of 24 to choose from, enabling you and your team to completely customise your Summit experience.
To whet your appetite and give you a sneak peek at the impressive talent we’ve secured for the event, we’ve interviewed a few speakers to learn a bit more about them and why they are looking forward to the Summit.
Q: What do most practices get wrong in relation to marketing? A: Practices are taking their online presence for granted and have been slow to realise the importance of getting their digital house in order. The practices that have been actively engaged in the area are at a huge advantage – the world has shifted to online marketing and practices need to catch up.
Q: What is your top marketing tip for practices? A: Invest in a good quality website, online bookings, and social media. Social media isn’t something to be scared of – it is a huge opportunity for you to engage with your patients and gain new patients.
Q: What part of your workshop do you think will resonate most with attendees? A: We will demystify what has traditionally been a complicated area. We use plain language and layout all aspects of your digital presence in an easy to follow way.
Q: What is your top marketing tip for practices? A: If you do ONLY one thing – (you shouldn’t only do one thing) then you should claim your Google My Business listing and optimise it. This is the listing that literally puts you on the map
Q: Tell us a bit about yourself A: I am the owner and founder of Healthsite; a digital business dedicated to the healthcare industry. I am passionate about all things medical. I started my journey in the healthcare industry 15 years ago working at the reception desk of a clinic that was managed by my families’ business. I was lucky enough to be promoted to practice manager, practice acquisition manager and ultimately sitting on the board of that very company. I started my own business along with my wife Missy, Healthsite in 2009 building online and digital products that meet the needs and requirements of today’s busy, pressure filled medical clinics. I’ve always believed we can separate ourselves to the rest by partnering with with our customers to achieve their objectives. We build relationships that matter. Our personal and flexible approach means we’ll deliver on their needs.
Katrina Otto
Managing Director @ Train IT Medical
Bp Summit Presentation: The Digital Health Team, Tips & Tricks for Your Practice, Shine Brighter & The Medicare Game Show
Q: What is one of the biggest challenges facing practices today? A: One of the biggest challenges I see is the shift in thinking required, as we move from the medical record being a memory aid for the doctor, to a clinical handover tool for the patient. This is very new way of thinking. The thriving practices of the future will be the ones who maximise effective use of digital technologies, engage with their patients electronically, and provide flexible delivery of service that best meets the needs of their patients.
Q: What part of your workshop do you think will resonate most with attendees? A: Tips and Tricks. Bp users are smart and savvy. They are always looking for ways to save clicks and that’s what we’ve got. That sound people make, that, ‘ahhhhh, I didn’t know that’ comment, when you know that tip you shared is going to save them time and/or money or give them peace of mind – that’s gold. We’ll be running a competition through the conference app too, so everyone will be knowledge sharing. I believe I have the best session of all at the Summit – Tips and Tricks – it’s going to be fantastic!
Q: What Bp Premier tip are you most looking forward to sharing? A: I have this one tip which I love to share because it gives doctors peace of mind. It is related to results follow-up and is about visibility and audit trails. Bit of suspense there but don’t worry we will be sharing all our tips with absolutely everyone; we share to care.
Q: What area of Bp Premier do you feel is the most commonly underutilised or misunderstood?| A: Recalls and Reminders ahhhhhh! They are the number one areas I am asked to train on and number one source of frustration for practices due to a lack of familiarity and knowledge. And my number one motivator is ensuring patients never slip through the cracks – this is vitally important to me.
Marcus Wilson
CEO @ Surgical Partners
Bp Summit Presentation: Frictionless Financial Management
Q: Tell us a bit about yourself A: I have been on somewhat of a career journeyman, from an engineering graduate to a healthcare analyst at an investment bank, to a multi-clinic practice management role, and now as a founder of a financial technology that is making management easier for medical practices. I think this diverse background has provided a unique perspective on solving problems in the industry; and I have developed a passion for engineering these solutions and for delivering them to medical practice clients of all sizes, from single GP sites to the largest corporate groups.
My family of 5 is based in Sydney, and we love to keep the kids active on weekends, be it hiking / cycling in the mountains; or making the most of summer on Sydney’s beaches and waterways, or on the NSW north coast where we try to get away to regularly. I love to meet new people and learn from them – its made me a serial networker and somewhat of a conference tragic. It has kept me on the road in recent years, and has allowed me to socialise with so many across the industry, and across the country – many of whom I consider close friends. There is perhaps too much personal in my professional life!
Q: What will you be presenting on at the Summit? A: I will be speaking about the exciting opportunities in the digital transformation of practice financial processes. Best Practice users have a huge range of integration partners and complementary technologies available to them – solutions that save practices time, reduce expenses, tighten compliance, drive patient retention and growth, and provide a more attractive offering to customer Doctors. Choosing between options (and implementing them!) can be daunting, and my aim is to help make sense of the options and to provide a practical way forward. We call this “frictionless financial management” – and so much of this future is readily available right now.
Q: What are you looking forward to most at the Bp Premier Summit 2020? A: I am really looking forward to meeting new people, both Best Practice users and other technology partners, and learning how we can work together for powerful industry outcomes. I love collaborating with our technology partners, so I am particularly excited about working with the Cubiko, Tanda and GrowthMD teams at the event. They are genuine, capable people who really understand the industry, and have so much to offer medical practices. In summary, I just can’t wait to see everyone there!
Join Team Bp at what has become one of Australia’s premier conferences for medical IT!
This year’s theme, Shine Brighter, is focused on empowering, educating and enabling Practice owners, staff and Bp Premier users. Our 6th Bp Summit program is like no other, packing in a wealth of industry experience, leadership, skills and new ideas from inspiring and engaging speakers. The 2020 Summit will give you a unique opportunity to engage with many more of your colleagues, our partners, and vendors of integrated and compatible technologies. We are looking forward to sharing with you a sneak peek of Titanium and other breakthrough products!
Bp Support News: For Australian users of Bp Premier
As part of our ongoing commitment to our customers in supporting seamless patient care and the day-to-day operations of Practices, we continue to release newer versions which offer a range of updates related to regulatory requirements, improvements to security, fixes to known issues, newly added features and enhancements.
For your convenience, we have provided an extensive list of updates which can be accessed by clicking here.
With this in mind, as previously advised in April of last year, from 2nd October 2019, we ceased providing support for all versions of Bp Premier prior to LAVA SP3 1.8.8.810. From 1st July 2020, we will be ceasing support for all version of Bp Premier prior to Jade 1.10.0.880.
Sunsetting will be a continuous process, with support for each version ceasing six months after the newest version has been released. Find out more information here.
Ceasing support includes version-specific templates, old reports, minimum software requirements and access to Bp Support Services.
Our Support team is here to help you upgrade to the latest version of Bp Premier. In addition, check out our Knowledge Base, which will provide you with all the information you need to upgrade. Click here for more about upgrading to Jade SP2.
Important Information: April 2020 SafeScript Requirements for Victorian Practices
From April 2020 it will be mandatory for all Victorian prescribing clinicians to check SafeScript prior to writing or dispensing a prescription for high-risk medications.
The Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981 specifies penalties that can be imposed on clinicians if they do not take all reasonable steps to check SafeScript when prescribing or dispensing a high-risk medicine so it is extremely important that your Practice is prepared and has started using SafeScript prior to the April deadline.
The implementation of SafeScript at your Practice will allow prescribing and dispensing records for certain high-risk medicines to be transmitted in real-time to a centralised database which can then be accessed by doctors and pharmacists during a consultation. SafeScript provides prescribers and pharmacists with a clinical tool to make safer decisions about the prescribing or dispensing of high-risk medicines, and facilitate the early identification, treatment and support for patients who are developing signs of dependence.
What can you do to start preparing now?
For Bp Premier Practices:
Ensure each clinician has registered for SafeScript via the SafeScript website
Ensure you are using the latest release of Bp Premier
Your practice must use eRx or MediSecure as your electronic prescription service
Your practice must have at least one location in Victoria defined in Setup > Practice Details
Enable the ‘Safe Script’ function via Preferences for each prescribing clinician within your Practice
For Bp VIP.net Practices:
Ensure each clinician has registered for SafeScript via the SafeScript website
Your practice must use eRx as your electronic prescription service
Option 1: An integrated version of SafeScript will be available for BpVIP.net users in March 2020. Once this is made available, we recommend installing and configuring SafeScript as soon as possible
Option 2: If you would like to start using SafeScript now, users can download a non-integrated version of SafeScript. Please click here for the Installation Guide provided by SafeScript
For VIP Gold Practices:
Ensure each clinician has registered for SafeScript via the SafeScript website
There will be no integrated solution available for VIP Gold users, due to this prescribing clinicians will need to login to the SafeScript portal and complete a check prior to prescribing any high-risk medications within VIP Gold.
To support our Victorian Practices through this change, we will soon commence engaging those Practices that have not yet started using SafeScript to provide support and guidance in relation to implementing all requirements prior to April 2020.
In the interim, if you would like to know more about SafeScript please visit the SafeScript website and the SafeScript brochure for Healthcare Professionals. The SafeScript General Enquiries team can be contacted on 03 9096 5633 or via email safescript@dhhs.vic.gov.au. Further information regarding this initiative can also be directed to our Commercial Partnership team on 1300 40 1111, option 4.
Home exercise programs often form a fundamental part of patient treatment plans for good reason. Studies show they can help increase muscle strength, improve physical function and prevent the need for surgical intervention. They’ve also been shown to improve patients’ quality of life, glycemic control and weight. Yet the effectiveness of the programs, and the impact they have on treatment outcomes, is almost wholly dependent on how well patients adhere to them.
Until recently, to prescribe home exercise programs, allied health practitioners had no choice other than to give patients paper handouts carrying printed instructions and either stick figures, or at best, grainy photos.
While these can be adequate for explaining basic exercises, they’re limited in their ability to explain the correct technique for more complex exercises. They also frequently prove inadequate where patients have a limited understanding of exercise techniques in general.
Another significant drawback of these traditional home exercise prescription methods is the lack of insight into patient adherence, progress, pain experienced during exercises or other, more specific feedback.
Not having this insight prevents practitioners from being able to adjust a patient’s exercise program should it be proving too easy or hard, or collect valuable outcomes data for payers like WorkCover or the TAC.
Physitrack, one of Bp Allied’s latest integration partners, is changing this with their comprehensive patient engagement solution.
Already used by 40,000+ practitioners and over 4 million patients, Physitrack lets practitioners prescribe crystal-clear exercise programs, track patient outcomes in real-time, educate patients and have secure Telehealth video calls.
Exercise Prescription: Choose from over 4,300 clinically validated, fully narrated exercise videos recorded in Ultra HD to build your own exercise program in seconds. Alternatively, upload your own exercise videos or photos to make your Physitrack library your own.
Outcomes Tracking: Track your patients’ compliance and pain scores / RPE in real-time thanks to the free PhysiApp patient app. Always know how your patients are tracking to have more meaningful conversation with them and keep them on track. Choose from 60+ clinical outcome measures and assign them to your patients. Reminders keep your patients on track and motivated.
Patient Education: Educate your patients and help them manage their condition with clear and engaging educational content. Upload your own patient leaflets or other content and share with your patients through the PhysiApp patient app, great for marketing purposes as well.
Secure Telehealth: Schedule consultations via Telehealth video calls and engage your patients remotely. Includes secure messaging and crystal-clear video calling powered by Dolby. Includes screen sharing and live exercise video streaming to educate patients remotely about correct exercise technique.
Thanks to the integration with Physitrack, BP Allied users can open their patient information from their Bp Allied screen directly into Physitrack. Uploading an exercise program from Physitrack into Bp Allied is extremely easy as well.
From 1 January 2020, the rural classification system used to determine eligibility for Bulk Billing Incentives will change, resulting in MBS Item updates in Bp Premier. Bulk Billing Incentives encourage medical practitioners to provide bulk billed services to vulnerable patient groups, such as people with concession cards and children under 16 years of age in rural and remote areas.
The Modified Monash Model (MMM) 2019 has been updated to align with the latest available census data (2016).
The model was developed to better target health workforce programs to attract health professionals to more remote and smaller communities. The MMM classifies metropolitan, regional, rural and remote areas according to geographical remoteness, as defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), and town size.
This may impact practices who use the MBS Bulk Billing Incentives 10991, 64991 and 74991.
If a practice believes their classification may have changed, follow these steps;
3) Click on “Find Address and add your practices address” and add your address
4) Search your location. Information will be visible advising your practices MMM region
Action if Your Practice Has Been Reclassified
If a practice has been reclassified and is not considered Rural or Remote (MMM 2 to 7), they will need to untick the ‘Rural/Remote Area’ checkbox in Setup > Practice details in Bp Premier.
For further information on the modified Monash Model or Rural Bulk Billing Incentives, please view the attachments below or visit https://www.health.gov.au.
We’re excited to announce that our newest partner, Nutrition Plus Enterprises, has provided Bp Premier users with complimentary access to over 150 new dietary education fact sheets to benefit patients.
Nutrition Plus is a team of dietitians who specialise in reproductive conditions, fertility, pregnancy, postpartum and paediatrics.
Dietitian and company founder, Melanie McGrice said, “for years the media has been asking health professionals what Australians could be doing about the rising rates of obesity, the diabetes epidemic and the soaring rates of food allergies. Now I have an answer! Research has found that the food men and women eat leading up to conception, during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and what is fed to their little one in the first few years of life, all impact genetic programming. By helping people to eat well during this 1000-day period, we can finally start reining in the tsunami of chronic disease.”
Unfortunately, many people eat worse than ever during this important time. “The stress of trying to conceive or of being pregnant can cause people to turn to emotional eating,” McGrice explains. Furthermore, lethargy and nausea caused by hormonal fluctuations when taking IVF medications or pregnancy can cause people to turn to highly processed, nutrient-poor junk foods. “People think that if they’re taking a pregnancy supplement, they’ve got nutrition covered. Supplements are there to complement a healthy diet, not to replace it”.
As part of their service offering, Nutrition Plus run free quarterly webinars focused on nutrition for fertility, pregnancy and postpartum care. The next webinar in February 2020 will focus on the management of IBS during pregnancy. Perth Dietitian, Christie Austine-Hore, who will be presenting the webinar explained, “rates of IBS increase during pregnancy, which can cause expectant mothers to cut out essential food groups and compromise their pregnancy nutrition.”
With over thirty specialised dietitians around Australia and New Zealand (and growing), their dietitians are the most qualified professionals to see when it comes to providing nutritional advice relating to fertility or pregnancy. Nutrition Plus dietitians provide workshops, online programs and personalised consultations for patients who are trying to conceive, are pregnant or experiencing postpartum.
For more information see www.nutritionplus.com.au or to save a complimentary seat for the upcoming webinar, see www.melaniemcgrice.com/webinar7. Please note that spots are limited, so book early to ensure you don’t miss out.
