Morning has broken, Sir Bruce has spoken, all of the Blackbirds are having a nice day.
A year in the making and we finally have our 44 recommendations on what we can do to drag our industry out of the gutter and ensure that it grows with the patient at its centre.
The Executive Summary of the report begins with; “The cosmetic interventions sector is growing rapidly. The existing regulatory framework has not kept pace with changes and it does not provide enough protection against many of the potential risks from cosmetic procedures”.
I couldn’t agree more.
We have unconsciously, not consciously designed the patient experience in Medical Aesthetics, and allowed complacency and poor practice to become the norm.
The purpose of this blog and summary, is to highlight the ways that iConsult Software and our product iConsultAesthetic can utilise technology to bring the Keogh Reports recommendations to fruition to in an expedient and cost effective manner. During the development of iConsultAesthetic, it became clear that we needed to adopt a set of principles to shape the product.
We needed to;
- Improve Accountability
- Improve Integrity
- Improve Transparency
- Improve Compliance
- Improve Patient Safety
“There are three key areas in which changes are needed: high quality care with safe products, skilled practitioners and responsible providers; an informed and empowered public to ensure people get accurate advice and that the vulnerable are protected; and, accessible redress and resolution in case things go wrong”.
- High quality care
- An informed and empowered public
- Accessible resolution and redress
Clearly Sir Bruce and his team are fans of the rule of three and these are the right battles to fight.
However, as with all things there is a significant difference between knowing the issue, fixing the issue and making sure it stays fixed.
This is where technological Interventions can help, so lets look at the recommendations in some detail and identify the key technological “fixes” that can provide a solid framework to enable and enforce compliance.
I have reviewed each recommendation individually, and highlighted how the current iConsultAesthetic system, or planned system will be able to support it.
Integrity
Integrity comes in two forms; personal and professional and iConsultAesthetic supports both.
With our data management processes we help you to demonstrate high levels of professional compliance by recording all of the pertinent data about a treatment performed, such as product used, areas treated and storing it digitally allowing it to be measured and audited.
The value of this can be measured not only in reducing your working hours, but also being able to show a very personal client experience, and by choosing iConsultAesthetic, not only are you providing a clear statement to your patients that you are committed to them, you are also making a very clear statement to your competition. Clearly differentiate yourself with your commitment to best practice, high levels of client engagement and increased retention.
We practice what we preach, and use state of the art encryption and security to maintain our integrity and keep your data safe.
Transparency
We believe strongly believe that a transparent process enhances the trust between you and your client. This is why iConsultAesthetic has been designed to actively record the qualification of the practitioner, providing the client with additional safeguards against being treated by the unqualified and unscrupulous.
Transparency is at the heart of iConsultAesthetic, and underlines our pioneering approach, as iConsultAesthetic is not just a system, but an ecosystem. A new online community built on Accountability, Integrity, Transparency, Compliance and Safety. We have created a Client Portal, where the “iConsulted” can view their patient notes, medical history, before and after images and products used.
This level of patient access is rare in healthcare, as the ecosystems do not exist, and is truly unrivalled anywhere in this industry, and marks the practitioners who use iConsultAesthetic as true pioneers.
How many times have you seen a client who has had poor treatment elsewhere, and doesn’t know what product was used where?
We thought this was odd too, so we have a built in Patient Passport, where your patients can vote with their feet, go to another practitioner using iConsultAesthetic and take their patient notes with them.
Compliance
Compliance, in our view is simply placing Safety, Integrity and transparency above all else, and then making the various regulatory bodies and groups aware of what you are doing. The aftermath of the PIP scandal in the UK is that the medical aesthetics industry will be forced to become far more particular in the products that are used. iConsultAesthetic supports this by encouraging and demanding that all clients treated have the product used recorded
This drive to help set the gold standard and provide a consistent approach to process will result in happier patients, reduced claims, higher quality paperwork, Improved visibility of treatments provided and the creation of a live record of product safety data.
Without anyone doing anything different. Thats the power of Digital Ecosystems!
Safety
The overarching goal of iConsultAesthetic is to contribute, and provide a robust mechanism for the best practitioners to flourish and be supported. The unqualified and unscrupulous will fear iConsultAesthetic as there is nowhere to hide! As a wise old man said “The good will be found, the bad will be found out”.
By enabling high levels of record keeping Integrity, clinical best practice, transparency, accountability and compliance, we can show your patients your commitment to best practice, and create and maximise the emotional attachment that will keep them coming back again and again.
So there we have it. Check the blog series for specific information on how iConsultAesthetic supports compliance with 20 out of the 44 recommendations
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