General practice is the name given in various nations, such as the United Kingdom, India, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa to the services provided by general practitioners. In some nations, such as the US, similar services may be described as family medicine or primary care. The term Primary Care in the UK may also include services provided by community pharmacy, optometrist, dental surgery and community hearing care providers. The balance of care between primary care and secondary care - which usually refers to hospital based services - varies from place to place, and with time. In many countries there are initiatives to move services out of hospitals into the community, in the expectation that this will save money and be more convenient.
Telehealth is the distribution of health-related services and information via electronic information and telecommunication technologies. It allows long-distance patient and clinician contact, care, advice, reminders, education, intervention, monitoring, and remote admissions. Telemedicine is sometimes used as a synonym, or is used in a more limited sense to describe remote clinical services, such as diagnosis and monitoring. When rural settings, lack of transport, a lack of mobility, conditions due to outbreaks, epidemics or pandemics, decreased funding, or a lack of staff restrict access to care, telehealth may bridge the gap as well as provide distance-learning; meetings, supervision, and presentations between practitioners; online information and health data management and healthcare system integration. Telehealth could include two clinicians discussing a case over video conference; a robotic surgery occurring through remote access; physical therapy done via digital monitoring instruments, live feed and application combinations; tests being forwarded between facilities for interpretation by a higher specialist; home monitoring through continuous sending of patient health data; client to practitioner online conference; or even videophone interpretation during a consult.
Family medicine is a medical specialty within primary care that provides continuing and comprehensive health care for the individual and family across all ages, genders, diseases, and parts of the body. The specialist, who is usually a primary care physician, is named a family physician. It is often referred to as general practice and a practitioner as a general practitioner. Historically, their role was once performed by any doctor with qualifications from a medical school and who works in the community. However, since the 1950s, family medicine / general practice has become a specialty in its own right, with specific training requirements tailored to each country. The names of the specialty emphasize its holistic nature and/or its roots in the family. It is based on knowledge of the patient in the context of the family and the community, focusing on disease prevention and health promotion. According to the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA), the aim of family medicine is "promoting personal, comprehensive and continuing care for the individual in the context of the family and the community". The issues of values underlying this practice are usually known as primary care ethics.
Choose and Book was an E-Booking software application for the National Health Service (NHS) in England which enabled patients needing an outpatient appointment to choose which hospital they were referred to by their general practitioner (GP), and to book a convenient date and time for their appointment.
NHS Digital is the trading name of the Health and Social Care Information Centre, which is the national provider of information, data and IT systems for commissioners, analysts and clinicians in health and social care in England, particularly those involved with the National Health Service of England. The organisation is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care.
Telepsychiatry or telemental health refers to the use of telecommunications technology to deliver psychiatric care remotely for people with mental health conditions. It is a branch of telemedicine.
A doctor's visit, also known as a physician office visit or a consultation, or a ward round in an inpatient care context, is a meeting between a patient with a physician to get health advice or treatment plan for a symptom or condition, most often at a professional health facility such as a doctor's office, clinic or hospital. According to a survey in the United States, a physician typically sees between 50 and 100 patients per week, but it may vary with medical specialty, but differs only little by community size such as metropolitan versus rural areas.
NHS Pathways is a triage software utilised by the National Health Service of England to triage public telephone calls for medical care and emergency medical services – such as 999 or 111 calls – in some NHS trusts and five of the ambulance services in the country. In its emergency capacity, it has replaced the Advanced Medical Priority Dispatch System for some trusts, and in non-emergency telephone triage it is found in many medical care triage systems, such as NHS 111.
The Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust ran Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, Honeylands Children's Centre, the Exeter Mobility Centre, and the Mardon Neuro-Rehabilitation Centre. The trust's application for NHS Foundation Trust status was approved in December 2003, which became effective on 1 April 2004.
Electronic consultation is an aspect of telemedicine which involves remote communication between patients and clinicians, or between clinicians and specialists.
The Hurley Group is a large provider of primary care services in London, one of only three organisations in England which served more than 100,000 patients in 2014. In 2012, it ran 13 practices, had 250 employees and provided a variety of NHS services across London.
Out-of-hours services are the arrangements to provide access to healthcare at times when General Practitioner surgeries are closed; in the United Kingdom this is normally between 6.30pm and 8am, at weekends, at Bank Holidays and sometimes if the practice is closed for educational sessions.
Patient choice is a concept introduced into the NHS in England. Most patients are supposed to be able to choose the clinician whom they want to provide them with healthcare and that money to pay for the service should follow their choice. Before the advent of the internal market, in principle, a GP could refer a patient to any specialist in the UK. When contracts were introduced in 1990 these were called extracontractual referrals. From 1999 the concept of Out of Area Treatments was developed. These referrals were not necessarily related to choice made by a patient. Specialised treatments were not, and are not, available in every area.
Patient record access in the United Kingdom has developed most fully in respect of the GP record, because computerisation in that field is almost universal. British hospitals were slower to move into electronic records. From 1 April 2015 all GP practices in England have to provide online services to patients, including access to summary electronic medical records.
EMIS Health, formerly known as Egton Medical Information Systems, supplies electronic patient record systems and software used in primary care, acute care and community pharmacy in the United Kingdom. The company is based in Leeds. It claims that more than half of GP practices across the UK use EMIS Health software and holds number one or two market positions in its main markets. In June 2022 the company was acquired by Bordeaux UK Holdings II Limited, an affiliate of UnitedHealth’s Optum business for a 49% premium on EMIS’s closing share price.
Babylon Health was a digital-first health service provider that combined an artificial intelligence-powered platform with virtual clinical operations for patients. Patients are connected with health care professionals through their web and mobile application.
The NHS App allows patients using the National Health Service in England to book appointments with their GP, order repeat prescriptions and access their GP record. Available since late 2018, the app was developed by NHS Digital and NHS England. The Health ministers Jeremy Hunt and Matt Hancock both stressed their support for the project. Hancock presented it as the key a radical overhaul of NHS technology. Hunt claimed it would mark 'the death-knell of the 8am scramble for GP appointments that infuriates so many patients'.
In 2005 the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom began deployment of electronic health record systems in NHS Trusts. The goal was to have all patients with a centralized electronic health record by 2010. Lorenzo patient record systems were adopted in a number of NHS trusts. While many hospitals acquired electronic patient records systems in this process, there was no national healthcare information exchange. Ultimately, the program was dismantled after a cost to the UK taxpayer was over $24 billion, and is considered one of the most expensive healthcare IT failures.
askMyGP is an online general practitioner consultation platform launched in 2011 by GP Access Ltd, based in Leicestershire.
Livi is a digital healthcare service by Kry International AB, a Swedish online healthcare company based in Stockholm. Kry International was established in 2015 and operates as Kry in Norway and Sweden. In France and the United Kingdom, it operates as Livi.
