ABSTRACT
A multichannel interaction service is a practice whereby organizations communicate and interact with their existing customers and potential new customers through different channels. This article presents a brief case study of multichannel interaction in healthcare services, which studies the viability of continuous multichannel interaction for personalized healthcare services to enable health professionals to follow up and monitor patients in home-based care. Furthermore, this study aims to explore the possibility of the continuity and complementarity of the interactions across different communication channels with the patients. The data used for this study was gathered during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study showed that despite this type of interaction being relatively new in healthcare services, it has considerable potential for improving the relationship between patients, health professionals, and care providers. Upon completion of the data analysis, several conclusions were drawn. One such conclusion was the ability to maintain continuity of interaction across multiple channels, as well as the synergy between the different channels of interaction available to patients and the impact this has on the way patients and health professionals interact. Additionally, it was determined that the complementarity of different interaction channels is crucial when implementing multichannel interaction services. Furthermore, the implementation of this solution resulted in improved communication between patients and health professionals. Also, it has decreased health professional's workload and reduced care providers costs regarding remote patient follow-up.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the importance and impact of telemedicine and multichannel interactions in healthcare services provided to patients. Health professionals are in turn increasingly dependent on patient data collected through multichannel interactions to make their clinical decisions. This article intends to present a brief analysis from the viewpoint of health professionals regarding the use of technologies in telemedicine and multichannel interactions to support decision making, basing on the analysis of clinical data of patients collected in a telemedicine environment. These technologies have numerous advantages for healthcare professionals and patients, but there are also some obstacles and gaps inherent that need to be overcome. Furthermore, health professionals can perform a more detailed analysis of patient data before taking any decision, as this practice promotes data collection to facilitate the decision-making process of health professionals.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic had put pressure on various national healthcare systems, due to the lack of health professionals and exhaustion of those avaliable, as well as lack of interoperability and inability to restructure their IT systems. Therefore, the restructuring of institutions at all levels is essential, especially at the level of their information systems. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic had arrived in Portugal at March 2020, with a breakout on the northern region. In order to quickly respond to the pandemic, the CHUP healthcare institution, known as a research center, has embraced the challenge of developing and integrating a new approach based on the openEHR standard to interoperate with the institution's existing information and its systems. An openEHR clinical modelling methodology was outlined and adopted, followed by a survey of daily clinical and technical requirements. With the arrival of the virus in Portugal, the CHUP institution has undergone through constant changes in their working methodologies as well as their openEHR modelling. As a result, an openEHR patient care workflow for COVID-19 was developed.