Patient Consult Summary application - for Victoria Health organisations
Create and share a consult summary for your patient during a Video Call
Please note: this application is currently in a testing phase.
The Patient Consult Summary app allows health service providers to create and share a patient consultation summary with a patient before the end of a Video Call consultation.
This app was developed by Monash University’s Faculty of Information Technology researchers, in collaboration with Monash Health, Healthdirect Australia, the University of Melbourne, with funding from Digital Health CRC Ltd and Victoria Department of Health. It has been co-designed and evaluated with clinicians, patients, and carers using an agile research and development approach.
The following forms are designed for organisations and clinics interested in using this application:
- To request access to the Patient Consult Summary app for your clinic(s), please use this consent form.
- For health practitioners using the app, please provide your feedback using this survey.
Watch the how-to video (please note this video will be updated soon as it shows a previous version of the app)
Here is a link to the above how-to video.
This demonstration video shows the Patient Consult Summary app being used during a Video Call consultation.
How it works
Using the Patient Consult Summary App
| Click on the Patient Consult Summary app button in the Video call screen to launch the app. |  |
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The app opens and the health service provider can choose from the Default Template or Quick Start options (Image 1). Quick Start will open a blank summary for you to start, with no headings etc.
If the health service provider has previously saved any of their own templates for a design they have set up , these will also be available to select (Image 2) |
Image 1
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| Once the desired option is selected, the details can be filled in during the consultation. The health service provider starts creating the summary by entering the necessary information for the consultation at the top, including their role, the patient's name (pre-filled but can be edited), date of birth and UR number if mandatory in your health setting. |
This image shows the Default Template headings pre-populated |
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During the consultation, the health service provider can type the relevant information being discussed into the summary headings. They can create new headings and reorder easily by cutting and pasting. Please note, this is not shared with the patient at this stage.
You can press Save Template at any time to save your current summary as a template for later use.
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Rich text formatting
The text in the summary can be formatted to suit the consultation requirements.
Options:
There is also a page break indication and you can cut and paste from any source into the summary. |
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| If the clinic admin has enabled dictation, then a mic button appears in the top bar to allow speech to text. As with other voice to text applications, dictation is not always accurate, as it may misidentify words or pick up external sounds, so the health practitioner needs to check to ensure that the final summary sent to the patient is correct. |  |
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Both participants see the same non-editable preview screen, however the health service provider has extra function buttons at the bottom.
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| In the shared summary, health practitioners and patients may see highlighted terms. Hovering their mouse over any highlighted terms will display medical terminology explanations. These explanations are sourced from Healthdirect’s glossary of medical terms and help patients understand the summary more easily. |
The explanation for ‘fever’ was added automatically, referencing Healthdirect's glossary of medical terms |
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Health practitioners can also add their own explanations to specific terms by clicking Add New Explanation. Type in the word(s) and add the explanation. The summary will update and any newly added explanations will be highlighted and display - but will not persist beyond the current call.
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This example shows the explanation for Antivirals being added by the clinician
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When the summary is emailed or saved as a PDF the highlighted medical explanations will appear at the bottom of the summary, as long as Include Terminology in PDF remains ticked. The PDF is password protected for security and the password is the patient's DOB in the format of (DD/MM/YYYY), as added at the top of the summary. |
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Once the summary has been discussed, health practitioners can send it to the patient or to themselves via email. Click the Email button and add the required email address. A copy of the summary will also be sent to the configured clinic email account for record-keeping purposes when it is emailed to any email address. Both health practitioners and patients also have the option to save the summary as a PDF file.
Remember that when the consultation is ended, the summary will no longer be available in the Video Call platform. There is an auto recovery of the summary, however, if the call gets disconnected or the computer crashes. |
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Configuration (for clinic administrators)
Please Note: as with all Healthdirect apps, this app does not store any data shared during the session. It does not for example, save the summary shared by the health service provider with their patient once the call ends. A copy is emailed to the configured email address for the health service and it is the responsibility of the clinic to keep these records.
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The default name for the app is Patient Consult Summary and this can be renamed by the clinic administrator, if desired. Enable App by clicking in the check box - it is not enabled by default. Only Enable Dictation if the health service providers will be using this feature - this will need to be checked for accuracy by the health service provider. Add the Clinic Name. Add the clinic Email Address that will receive the finalised summaries if they are emailed to any other Email address from within the app. This email address appears in the footer of the PDF summary. Add the Clinic Phone Number which will appear in the footer of the PDF summary. Add the Clinic Address which will appear in the PDF footer of the summary. Contact the Healthdirect Video Call team to have the enablement key added for your clinic. |
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There are several check boxes in the configuration section that are all OFF by default. These can be enabled at any time by the clinic administrator. Encrypt PDFs - for added security of the information. If enabled the file can only be opened with the password which is the patient's DOB. Mandatory UR Number - if your health service uses UR numbers, you have the option to enable this. Alphanumeric UR Number - allows the UR Number to include both letters and numbers. |
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