Referral not always needed: remote connection brings a specialist to your health centre
What if a specialist could come and check on you whenever you are seeing a doctor at the health centre? So you would not have to go to a specialist with a referral but instead meet two doctors on one visit? The service is called real-time remote consultation, and it is becoming more widely used at health centres in Western Uusimaa. The experiences have been good.
Real-time remote consultation works so that the health centre doctor contacts a HUS specialist during your appointment via video or voice call or chat. During your appointment, you are able to hear the opinion of a HUS specialist about your treatment, ask questions about things that are on your mind and participate in the planning of your treatment.
Two doctors on one visit
Real-time remote consultation is being introduced throughout Uusimaa. The service is already in use in Espoo, Kauniainen, Kirkkonummi and Lohja. Now Raseborg and Karviainen are also joining in.
So far, real-time remote consultation has been used especially in issues related to wound care and neurology. The service is also available in relation to sleep disorders, skin diseases and the special expertise of the gender dysphoria outpatient clinic, and more specialities will be added this autumn.
Save time and effort, get things done faster
With real-time remote consultation, you can take care of things that do not require a physical visit to a specialist. It saves time, effort and transport.
“Many things can be resolved quickly without having to go to a specialist. The most important thing is a good result, and there are many opportunities for good collaboration between experts in different fields and the client,” says Deputy Chief Physician Riikka Salo at Samaria Health Centre in Espoo.
If a physical visit to a specialist is necessary, you will receive a referral to specialised medical care, as before. Specialist appointments will continue to be available, and you will probably get an appointment more quickly.
The experience gained so far has been positive.
“A referral is not always needed,” Riikka Salo sums up with a smile.
We are developing services in the Western Uusimaa social and health services programme. Municipalities are in charge of arranging services until the end of year 2022.