Tegan Swann

Imagine a patient trying to book an appointment online, only to find that the website’s design prevents them from doing so due to their visual, auditory, cognitive, or motor impairment. This creates a barrier for them and means your practice loses a potential patient.

Do you want to get on the right side? Check your website against Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or WCAG. Developed by The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), WCAG are a globally accepted set of guidelines developed to provide a single shared standard for web content accessibility that meets the needs of individuals, organisations, and governments.

If you operate in Australia, the Federal Disability Discrimination Act 1992 protects people from discrimination based on disability. In particular, Section 24 explicitly prohibits providers of goods, services, and facilities from discriminating against users based on their disability. So, if your clinic’s website is not accessible, your clinic may be failing to provide its services to a person with a disability. If a person with a disability cannot access the service through the website just like other people without disabilities can, this could conceivably constitute discrimination. There have been a few big cases in Australia, like Coles and ABC, that were raised on the basis of discrimination online.

Besides not meeting the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 requirements, meeting web accessibility standards makes good business sense for private businesses. People with disabilities represent a significant portion of the population. One in seven people under 64 years and half of the population above 64 have a disability (https://australiandisabilitynetwork.org.au/resources/disability-statistics/).

By ensuring your website is accessible, you open your services to a wider audience. This inclusivity can lead to increased patient satisfaction, loyalty, and referrals. Additionally, search engines factor in user experience when assessing rankings, meaning that accessible websites often perform better in search engine rankings.

Increasing your site’s accessibility will enhance your online presence and potentially attract more patients. Below is a list of no-cost steps you can take to run your website accessibility validation:

For people living with hypertension, many endure high blood pressure for years, sometimes decades, before finding the right treatment. The reason? An underlying hormonal driver that is often overlooked because of its perceived status as ‘rare’: Primary Aldosteronism.

In most cases of hypertension, ‘essential hypertension’ is assumed and standard blood pressure lowering medications are prescribed, with more and more medications added when the blood pressure remains stubbornly high. However, for those patients unknowingly suffering from primary aldosteronism (also known as Conn syndrome), only when we specifically look for this condition can it be found. Once diagnosed, it can be treated with the appropriate medication to block the effects of aldosterone excess, and, in some cases, even cured with adrenal surgery.

Associate Professor Jun Yang, an endocrinologist specialising in primary aldosteronism at the Hudson Institute of Medical Research and Monash University, has experienced the effects of delayed primary aldosteronism diagnosis in her own family. Dr Yang’s own father struggled with uncontrolled hypertension for decades before he was screened and found to have this form of hormonal hypertension. Since then, his blood pressure has returned to normal using just one targeted medication, thanks to a diagnosis of primary aldosteronism.

Are you looking for a partner that truly listens and enhances your practice? Meet Lyrebird Scribe, an advanced AI scribe designed to capture and transcribe patient consultations in real-time. This innovative tool listens in the background at your command and generates comprehensive clinical notes in seconds, significantly reducing the administrative burden on general practitioners and allowing more time for exceptional patient care. Lyrebird Scribe stands out by learning from the clinician’s style and voice, ensuring that the generated notes are both accurate and personalised. By taking care of the time-consuming task of documentation, Lyrebird Scribe allows you to focus on what you do best—caring for your patients.

With over 10,000 real-world consultations across general practice and various specialties, Lyrebird Scribe has proven its value. On average, clinicians save 2-3 hours daily on documentation, and the system boasts a 98% accuracy rate in note generation, eliminating the need for extensive review.

Lyrebird Scribe integrates seamlessly with Bp Premier versions Orchid SP2 and above, recording directly from and to the patient record. The AI Scribe generates clinical notes in a number of standard formats, which are written back into Bp Premier with a single touch at the end of the consultation, with indication of transcription.

Key features of Lyrebird Scribe include:

Today’s Staff Spotlight piece comes from our Bp Premier Delivery Stream Leader, Eli. As a delivery lead, Eli is responsible for keeping multiple software development projects on track and ensuring they are completed on time and according to specifications.

Leverage Bp Premier’s Bulk Verifications to reduce administrative burden and cut down on Medicare rejections due to incorrect Medicare Card details.

Best Practice integrates directly with Medicare for several functions, one of which is verifying your patients’ card details. You can individually verify your patients, but why perform individual checks when you can verify Medicare details in bulk? This feature is easy to use, will check all your patients for the day and could save you a lot of time.

So, how do I use it? From the appointment book screen, select Utilities > Bulk patient verification, and you will see this screen.