Can Enabling In-Hospital Patient-Doctor Interaction Help?

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on people around the world, but perhaps the ones that have been affected the most are those working in the healthcare industry. Not only are they battling the infection at their workplaces, but also suffering on the personal front as they work tirelessly and live in constant fear of infecting a loved one (despite taking all precautions). In addition, ensuring that those hospitalized for other ailments or conditions do not contract the disease is also paramount. 

42Gears Mobility Systems collaborated with Marcom Hub and The Entrepreneurship Academy from Bucharest Romania to combat the problem with a novel solution to this problem. We’ve all been practicing social distancing, and as a result, virtual meeting platforms have gained immense popularity in the COVID-19 era. A team of students from The Entrepreneurship Academy, identified the need to enable remote doctor-patient interactions within a hospital. If patients could communicate with doctors without doctors having to visit their rooms, not only would it reduce the chances of the contagion spreading, but also enable patients to connect with their doctors easily (and whenever they wanted) to get their concerns addressed (or questions answered) by the doctor in-person.

The team arranged for Samsung and Huawei tablets to be placed in patient cabins at the hospitals to enable patients connect with their doctors. However, the hospital authorities did not want to overwhelm the patients, especially the elderly (who may not be very tech-savvy), with too many apps or a complex call initiation process. For this, they wanted to turn these tablets into single-purpose devices – one which would connect patients to doctors. They also wanted a solution that would help them troubleshoot tablets, in case they needed fixing.

This was made possible by 42Gears’ offerings – SureLock and SureMDM. They used SureLock to turn these tablets into dedicated-purposes tools by locking them down to a single app – Call a Doctor. This app initiates a remote interaction session between a patient and doctor in just two clicks – one that starts the app and one that places the video call. They are also using SureMDM, 42Gears’ unified endpoint management solution, to manage these tablets. The SureMDM web console allows IT admins to monitor all enrolled devices through a single pane of glass, troubleshoot issues remotely, and push app updates to devices over-the-air.

Team 42Gears also worked with them to deploy the solution and iron out any issues that cropped up. Implementing SureLock and SureMDM has negated the need for doctors to visit patients in their rooms while making it easy for patients to talk to their doctors. The solution has been received well by both patients and doctors. So far, the team has already implemented this solution in four hospitals that specialize in infectious diseases around the country, and is planning to implement the same in more hospitals in the following weeks.

In their own words: