Rapid Health's intelligent triage helps NHS GP practices and primary care networks (PCNs) solve the chronic 8am peak problem by giving patients the power of self-service. Rapid Health CEO and co-founder Carmelo Insalaco speaks exclusively with Digital Health about the benefits of the software, how it's unlike anything else, and his ambitions for the future.
From symptom assessment to automatic appointment scheduling, Smart Triage safely directs patients to the most appropriate care setting, without intervention from practice staff. By implementing the software, GP practices and RSPs can improve patient access, reduce workload, free up capacity and manage patient demand more effectively.
“The elephant in the room is that when people talk about triage, they're really talking about online counseling,” Insalaco said. “It's a form from the 1980s of capturing information with a little intelligence, which is to ask this question if someone asks it – it's linear logic.”
“The fundamental problem is that at the end of each online consultation, a person has to do work in the office… you are now increasing the demand because you have opened a new channel, which is completely unlimited,” Insalaco explained.
Instead of the “8 a.m. rush,” where everyone is trying to get an appointment in the morning at the same time, Rapid Health Smart Triage provides 24/7 access to patients.
Benefits and what sets Rapid Health apart
In terms of customer benefits, “the majority of our customers leave Rapid Health on 24/7,” Insalaco said. “This essentially means that a GP practice with Rapid Health can access their GP 14/7. I don't think any other provider is capable of doing this.
Insalaco confirmed to Digital Health News that based on Rapid Health's actual evaluation taking place across the country, “results in the first five days, other providers have not been able to do that in five years.
Rapid Health's software is used across the NHS, including at Manor Court Surgery, where 77% of patients preferred being able to choose their own appointment times and 69% preferred using automated clinical triage.
For patients triaged as non-urgent and offered the next available slot up to 14 days in advance, most chose an appointment slot between three and seven days in the future, rather than the ” next available slot”, which means that practices can standardize demand.
The data also shows that before using automated clinical triage, a practice received an average of 85 calls during the “8 a.m. peak,” but after deploying automated clinical triage, call volumes from the firm during the same period were reduced by 47%.
Ambition
Rapid Health's ultimate goal is to integrate care across different care settings such as primary care, secondary care and remote monitoring on a single platform.
“Our ambition is fundamentally to integrate care and our intelligence system to fundamentally help patients proactively manage their care, but also get care when they need it,” Insalaco added.