Pilot telemedicine project has reduced patient rush: Rajavithi Hospital

The department director-general, Dr Amporn Benjaponpitak, said the success of the virtual hospital services at Rajavithi Hospital would be used as a base for the department to expand its experiment to 11 other hospitals and agencies under the department soon.

She said the DMS has been testing the virtual hospital services via the DMS Telemedicine system at Rajavithi Hospital since October last year.

According to Amporn, the virtual hospital services offers five facilities:
Virtual visit: The system provides a patient card for identification and for making an online appointment with doctors.
 

Telemedicine: The system uses video call for patients to meet their doctors online and for communicating with nurses before meeting doctors.

E-payment: Patients can pay for medical services via mobile applications and the Paotan wallet app.

Telepharmacy: The hospital uses mail services or delivery services to dispatch medicine to the patients.

DMS Personal Health Record: This allows doctors or hospitals to search for online medical records of patients for best medical treatment results.

She said the system had significantly reduced congestion at the Rajavithi  Hospital.

But not all patients can use the DMS Telemedicine services.
Rajavithi Hospital director Dr Jinda Rojanamethin said only patients with static, and not emergency conditions, would be allowed to use the telemedicine services under the DMS.

The patients can also use blood tests at labs near their homes and send the results to the doctors for analysis.

Under the virtual hospital system, he said, patients can stay home in the so-called “home ward” during their recovery.

He said the DMS Telemedicine system allowed patients to talk to their doctors in real-time so they could receive treatment as if they were at the hospital.

Jinda said Rajavithi Hospital treated around 1 million outpatients per year, an average of around 5,400 patients a day, so the new virtual hospital had really helped reduce congestion at the hospital.