It seems like a lie that so many people and hours were taken up by the medical interview, and all the staff are happy!
Segoe-Otolaryngology is an ENT clinic located in Ehime Prefecture, Japan, providing medical care for ear, nose and throat diseases such as otitis media, hearing loss, allergic rhinitis, sinusitis, hay fever and pharyngitis since 1993.
We interviewed Dr. Masahiro Segoe, the director of the clinic, about the background of the introduction of the Melp web-based medical questionnaire system and how it is uniquely utilized.
We have decided to introduce electronic medical records after 24 years of ENT practice.
The main reason is to simplify the work of the receptionist.
The receptionist searches the patient's name and ID on the computer, takes out the paper medical record, stamps the date, enters the examination, treatment, and IV into the computer, pastes the test results, and puts the medical record back in the cabinet in order of the patient's name. I wanted to eliminate the very complicated and time-consuming work. In addition, I had to work overtime every day and stay late at the end of the month to receive the receipts.
There was one more thing that we wanted to improve before introducing the system. It takes a lot of time and manpower to conduct medical interviews.
In the case of our hospital, nurses used to interview patients in the waiting room, but there were many who could not stop talking or could not get to the point, and it was very time-consuming to look up oral medications in a book and write them on a photocopied prescription.
That's when I came across Merp's web-based questionnaire.
I was so impressed when I saw the web-based medical questionnaire that worked on my smartphone, and I was astonished, not exaggerating, that this was exactly what I was looking for.
What surprised me when I actually started using the system was that patients would send me medical questionnaires on their smartphones with almost no resistance.
The most important part of the operation is how to create the medical questionnaire.
Through trial and error, we had to figure out how much to ask, what was unnecessary, and how to make it look less complicated on the electronic medical record.
What surprised me when we actually started using the system was that patients sent their medical questionnaires via smartphone with almost no resistance.
Almost 80% or 90% of the patients use their own smartphones, and in the case of elderly patients, the attendant will send in the questionnaire, and for those who come alone and are not used to it, the nurse will do the web questionnaire while listening to their stories on the iPad.
Rather than randomly asking, "What's wrong? Rather than just asking "What's wrong?", if the patient is dizzy, for example, if the patient has been dizzy for a long time, it will take less time to make a questionnaire, and then we can just ask the necessary questions while examining the patient.
In the case of a first visit, I made it so that the patient can select various symptoms, but in the case of a second visit, I decided to leave it to the patient to write freely.
The clerk checks the medical questionnaire in advance, and if there is anything missing, the nurse will go and ask.
The function to freely customize the medical questionnaire is useful
The feature that I like the most is the ability to display the medical questionnaire in text format.
"If the question is, "Since when?" or "Which ear does it hurt? If the question is "since when" or "which ear hurts?", the patient only needs to type in "yesterday" or "right ear", but this can be written as "my right ear hurts since yesterday", making it easier to understand in the medical record.
Also, I was convinced by the patient's response.
"When I used to listen to the questionnaire in the waiting room, people around me would ask me why I came to the hospital, but with the web-based questionnaire, I can maintain my privacy. The response was a pleasant surprise.
There was a lot I didn't understand at first, but the follow-up was excellent, and they responded to my questions immediately and were surprisingly quick when I suggested improvements.
It seems like a lie that so many people and time were spent on the medical interview, and all the staff are happy.
I think this is a revolutionary system and there is a lot of potential for development, so I would like to help as much as I can to make it an even better web-based medical interview system. .
Here is the interview with the nurse.
- Thank you very much for taking the time to respond to my question, even though it was during a break in the clinic. Quickly, how many elderly people come to the hospital in total?
About 30-40% of the total. For about half of them, it is difficult for them to fill out the web questionnaire by themselves, so we (nurses) accompany them to the hospital.
That's a much higher percentage than I had imagined. Incidentally, how do you check if the patients are able to fill out the web medical questionnaire by themselves?
First of all, I judge them by their appearance, and if I feel that they seem to be difficult, I ask them, "Do you have a smartphone?" First of all, if I felt that it would be difficult for you, judging from your appearance, I would ask you if you have a smartphone.
If they don't have a smartphone, we ask them if they have a smartphone, and if they don't have a smartphone, we ask them if they have a smartphone.
How is the confirmation process? In the case of paper questionnaires, I don't think there was any confirmation work involved.
It was not as burdensome as we had expected. "Some people were reluctant to ask, "Do you have a smartphone? It was not as much of a burden as I expected. It's not a hassle because you can ask and get an immediate response.
Does it still depend on the age of the patient whether they can fill out the web-based questionnaire or not?
Actually, not really.
When a nurse accompanies the patient to input data, does it slow down other operations?
In our hospital, we rotate our duties by time zone.
For example, from 9 to 10 a.m., Ms. A is in charge of accompanying patients for web-based consultation, Ms. B is in charge of examinations, and so on. In rare cases, there is an overlap in the number of patients who are not able to fill out the web-based interview, but in such cases, we ask them to wait and one of us in charge of the web-based interview takes care of them in turn. This method of operation is currently working well for us.
I see. How is the workload now that you have switched from paper questionnaires to web questionnaires?
It has become easier. We used to use paper medical questionnaires for all patients, but almost 80-90% of the patients fill out the questionnaires on their own smartphones, so even if we take into account the cases where we accompany the patients, the workload is much lower than before. What surprised us when we actually started using the system was that patients sent in their medical questionnaires on their smartphones with almost no resistance.