It was very attractive to be able to eliminate all of the hassle for the doctors, and most importantly, the staff at the clinic.
Kinshicho Heart Clinic | Internal Medicine, Cardiology, Respiratory Medicine, Diabetology
Kinshicho Heart Clinic is an internal medicine, cardiology, respiratory medicine, and diabetes clinic located in Sumida-ku, Tokyo, Japan. Opened in 2019, their cardiologists are sincerely committed to the latest findings in cardiology.
We interviewed Dr. Fukui, the director of the clinic, about the background to the introduction of Melp questionnaire and how it is uniquely utilized.
Please tell us about the background to the introduction of the web-based medical questionnaire.
When I was thinking about what patients wanted most when I was building my clinic, one of the major factors was to avoid making them wait as long as possible, so that they could receive high quality medical care while using their limited time effectively.
The web-based questionnaire is different from the conventional paper questionnaire, for example, with the recent touch panel, the text is created by pressing the buttons, and it can be directly reflected in the EMR, which is very attractive because it eliminates the time and effort of the patient, the doctor, and above all, the staff of the clinic.
Why did you decide to use Melp?
There are two main reasons.The first was that there were several such web-based medical questionnaire services to choose from, but Melp was the one with a very simple system.
Because when we make medical questionnaires on a daily basis, points for improvement come up every day. For example, when we find that the results written by the patient are actually looking like this, and we want to correct it in a new way, we can use what we already have here to reflect on it and correct it right here. This was a very useful tool that I could use easily.
However, when we actually used it, we ran into various problems. If you post your problems on Slack, other users will share their thoughts with you, and the developers will send you direct messages. This is a great attraction for me as a user. That's a big attraction for us as users.
Would you tell us about the advantages you felt from using Melp?
This was more than we imagined. At first, I was only thinking that it would save me a lot of time and effort to have the patient's medical history directly reflected in the EMR.
However, when I actually tried it, I found that patients can input their own information using their own smartphones, for example, predictive conversions, and they are also familiar with the devices. This is what makes it so easy for patients to use.
And one more thing. It takes about 3 seconds from the time the input is received to the time it is reflected here. This is a great improvement in our operation because we can call patients immediately after seeing the information.
In our clinic, staff members enter the information into the electronic medical record on behalf of the patients, but the fact that the staff members don't have to do that is very significant. I think it's a great tool.