Bye-bye WhatsApp: revolutionising medical communications and patient care in Australia
Announcement posted by myBeepr 30 Jun 2021
New research has shown that a staggering 95% of Australian doctors currently use Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, iMessage, and other inherently insecure social messaging platforms to transmit confidential patient health information – including images of patient wounds, lesions and x-rays – and coordinate patient care.
Enter myBeepr, the clinical communication platform revolutionising the speed, quality, and security of patient care and care collaboration in Australia.
St George Hospital in Sydney and Western Health in Melbourne have already both rolled out the application to over 2,000 staff this year, and over the first 8 weeks alone:
· more than 1.5 million messages were read
· thousands of secure clinical photos were shared
· the two sites reported a >90% reduction in the use of social media platforms to communicate patient information
myBeepr was developed in 2016 by colorectal surgeon, Dr Vikram Balakrishnan, and entrepreneurs (and sisters) Kruti Balakrishnan and Krupa Bhagani, following the sisters’ long-term care of their terminally ill father, during which time a communication error led to him being incorrectly prescribed a treatment medication.
The sisters were not alone. In 2018, Hodgkin's lymphoma patient, 58-year-old Victorian, Mettaloka Halwala, was ultimately found to have died as a result of specialist scans showing lung toxicity being faxed to a wrong number.
“Communication breakdowns occur on a daily basis in Australian healthcare,” said co-founder Krupa Bhagani, “predominantly because they still rely heavily on outdated communication platforms such as pagers, compared to other industries which have evolved to more sophisticated technologies.
“How can you rely on one-way communication platforms when the nature of healthcare requires teams to collaborate - you're bound to miss critical information which eventually leads to the patient suffering.”
Dr Balakrishnan experienced first-hand the immense challenges doctors face on a daily basis in communicating critical patient care instructions with colleagues and associated medical staff.
“Consumer messaging apps like WhatsApp have become embedded within healthcare organisations as time-poor doctors resort to quick and easy ways to collaborate around patient care,” he explained.
Chief Medical Officer at Western Health, Dr Paul Eleftheriou, agreed. “Before myBeepr, staff were using desk phones and LAN-pagers, both of which are inefficient [as they require both sender and receiver to be free at the same time].”
Although never officially endorsed by hospitals, the use of inefficient tools such as paging devices, desk phones, and faxes by medical teams spread onto private messaging apps such as WhatsApp without too much question as smart phones became commonplace.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer at Western Health, Dr Birinder Giddey, emphasised that communication and collaboration underpin everything a clinician does.
“myBeepr has features that exceed the applications that were already being used such as WhatsApp, including the ability to search a live hospital directory as well as accurately tag photos with patient details.”
Co-founder Kruti Balakrishnan, in describing myBeepr’s exciting next phase, added “there are a number of unique clinical workflows and use cases that we need to consider before introducing nursing and allied health staff onto the platform.”
“Organisation-wide secure messaging [in the health industry] is not a solution you can simply throw over the fence.”
For more information, images, or to arrange an interview contact Annie de Merindol on 0414 757 390 or email ademerin@icloud.com.