Irish GPs begin virtual consultations with patients amid Coronavirus crisis

Technology which allows Irish doctors throughout the country to provide virtual consultations is being rolled out in a bid to combat the spread of Covid-19.

The innovative technology, developed by NuaHealth, will allow doctors and clinicians to provide a virtual clinic and offer online consultations to their patients via smartphone, tablet and computer.

Members of the public who believe they have coronavirus symptoms will be able to see their GP from the comfort of their home.

NuaHealth chief executive Oisin Kim said Ireland’s health service is facing challenges unthinkable just a few months ago, and things will only get worse with government predicting 15,000 Covid-19 infections by month’s end.

“Everyone is coming together to help slow the spread of Covid-19. The agility shown by both Apple and Google in fast-tracking the app through the app stores review process with help from local Apple and Google people was astounding”.

He said more than 360 clinicians nationwide had already signed up to use the service.

Dr Nick Flynn of MyCorkGP.ie said: “The Covid crisis has seen my practice change beyond recognition in the last 10 days. Central to facilitating that change has been the addition of a video consultation solution from NuaHealth. User friendly, secure and provided at cost price, it has proven popular with our GPs but more importantly with our patients.”

Available in App Stores, including iOS and Android, the NuaHealth service can be used on any laptop or desktop computer with a camera, speaker and microphone.

The online doctor service comes following consultation with the Department of Health and HSE.

HSE Digital Transformation Director Prof. Martin Curley said: “We are pleased to partner with NuaHealth to produce a HSE branded video consultation tool for GPs and other healthcare providers in a matter of days. Their agility and the willingness to offer the service at cost price is a great exemplar of how the digital health ecosystem in Ireland is responding to the Covid 19 crisis.”

NuaHealth is the sister company of Webdoctor, which already supports the needs of over 750,000 patients throughout Europe. Using a comprehensive suite of modular technologies including secure video, secure in app messaging, clinical screening questionnaires, clinical decision support and laboratory and device integrations, it optimises clinical communication, reduces the time to treat and improves health outcomes.

Founded by Dr Sylvester Mooney, Oisin Kim, Howard Kim, Martin Commins, Krzysztof Adamski and Gerard Kelly in 2013, Webdoctor has been delivering telemedicine software and services for over 6 years.

More about Irish Tech News and Business Showcase here

FYI the ROI for you is => Irish Tech News now gets over 1.5 million monthly views, and up to 900k monthly unique visitors, from over 160 countries. We have over 860,000 relevant followers on Twitter on our various accounts & were recently described as Ireland’s leading online tech news site and Ireland’s answer to TechCrunch, so we can offer you a good audience!

Since introducing desktop notifications a short time ago, which notify readers directly in their browser of new articles being published, over 30,000 people have now signed up to receive them ensuring they are instantly kept up to date on all our latest content. Desktop notifications offer a unique method of serving content directly to verified readers and bypass the issue of content getting lost in people’s crowded news feeds.

Drop us a line if you want to be featured, guest post, suggest a possible interview, or just let us know what you would like to see more of in our future articles. We’re always open to new and interesting suggestions for informative and different articles. Contact us, by email, twitter or whatever social media works for you and hopefully we can share your story too and reach our global audience.

Irish Tech News

If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at Simon@IrishTechNews.ie or on Twitter: @SimonCocking