- Q doctor is helping healthcare providers dealing with the pressures of Covid-19 to improve patient outcomes, including at London's Covid-19 Isolation Centre at Heathrow
- Q doctor's solutions will support NHS England's target of 30% reduction in face to face outpatient appointments
LONDON, April 29, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Q doctor, a technology provider that removes barriers for patients to access medical advice and treatment, has enabled 300 clinicians to provide remote patient care using its virtual workplace system, by scaling the capacity of its Health and Social Care Network (HSCN) connection with Cloud Gateway.
Q doctor provides a virtual workspace and online video consultations solution, Q health, which gives consultants, GPs, nurses and many other medical professionals the ability to provide care, wherever the doctor or patient is based. NHS Digital and NHS England have granted approval for Q doctor to be included in an emergency Coronavirus framework, meaning Q health is now centrally funded for NHS organisations that need it.
With the rapid spread of Covid-19 dramatically mounting pressure on the already stretched primary and urgent care services of the NHS, Q doctor's existing HSCN connection, which provides clinicians with access to clinical systems essential for patient care, had quickly become saturated. Q doctor needed a fast solution to continue to support vital patient services, remotely. At the same time, many clinicians were being asked to stay home or self-isolate following government distancing rules, but lacked the physical hardware needed to log into clinical systems securely, access patient records and were not able to treat patients.
A new solution
Q doctor asked Cloud Gateway, a hybrid cloud and multicloud connectivity provider, to advise on the complete end-to-end connectivity solution to connect the software to the HSCN.
Working with the Q doctor engineering team, Cloud Gateway understood the time-sensitive nature of the project, so set up a working proof of concept within ten minutes, using cloud-native connectivity platform, PRISM. With this, a new PRISM tenant with HSCN connectivity was set up and onboarded within just one week from Cloud Gateway's first engagement with Q doctor. This allowed the company to seamlessly connect to the HSCN, providing clinicians with the ability to access, manage, transfer and share patient data.
Within two days of this deployment, Q doctor has enabled more than 300 clinicians to provide remote patient care, and will now see exponential adoption by up to tens of thousands of clinicians who are working remotely, vastly improving patient outcomes during the Covid-19 crisis.
Dr. Chris Whittle, Founder & CEO, Q doctor, said: "Our NHS is under considerable pressure and we need to draw support from every corner of the sector. Q doctor has fast-tracked our HSCN connected Virtual PCs, meaning clinicians working remotely can use their own computer to securely access their clinical system via the HSCN network without any additional hardware, augmenting capacity for healthcare providers dealing with the pressures of Covid-19, including in London's Covid-19 Isolation Centre at Heathrow.
"To enable our remote working service, alongside video consultations, we needed to upgrade our HSCN connection capacity. However, our incumbent provider couldn't increase fast enough to meet Covid-19 demand. The Cloud Gateway team understood the need for a fast response in the current situation, and went above and beyond expectations to fast track onboarding. We are incredibly proud to provide clinicians' the ability to provide remote care during these unprecedented times. This is a key step to improving patient outcomes and reducing the need for face to face outpatient appointments now and in the future."
Justin Day, CEO & co-founder of Cloud Gateway said: "Future-proofed secure cloud connectivity, deployed at speed, has always been at the centre of Cloud Gateway's mission, but knowing that we are enhancing patient care during these challenging times, this is more important than ever to support healthcare organisations. The opportunity to stand with healthcare technology providers such as Q doctor, and continue to eliminate unnecessarily long tech deployment lead times as an obstacle to patient care, has given us an even greater sense of purpose."
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