Reproductive healthcare is one of the most complex areas in health as treatments as it is one of the few pathways that involve multiple participants. That means even more people involved in consultations, receiving treatment options, and providing healthcare consent. All of this adds up to a lot more documentation, but until recently, many assisted reproduction clinics in the United Kingdom handled all of this on paper.

The founders of OX.DH saw an opportunity to improve processes for clinics and patients. The healthtech startup, whose shareholders include Oxford University, develops 100% cloud native technology to digitize healthcare workflows and put patients at the center of their care.

“We are enabling shared decision-making between clinicians and patients,” explains Emma Stratful, COO at OX.DH. “OX.DH services support this by empowering patients to take greater agency in their healthcare process, with the ability to manage virtual appointments, fill out paperwork online, and access results at any time through a patient portal.”

OX.DH built its services for fast, easy deployment by taking advantage of Microsoft 365 tenants already in use for many clinics associated with the National Health Service (NHS). Cloud native components are built on Microsoft Azure with open APIs. Adobe Acrobat Sign adds cloud e-signature capabilities and Microsoft 365 offers document management capabilities required for obtaining patient consent.

While OX.DH started in the assisted reproduction field, there is demand for digital services in all healthcare practices. The organization expanded its Patient Consent service to provide paperless, cloud native documentation for a wide variety of healthcare needs – both clinical and research.

“Adobe Acrobat Sign was a natural choice for us based on its leading position in digital signatures and native integration with Microsoft,” says John Kosobucki, CEO and Founder at OX.DH. “Once we started working with the e-signature solution, we appreciated how much thought had gone into the technology, with out-of-the-box functionality that made it easy for us to expand functionality to all types of healthcare organizations.”

Saving time and paper

The OX Patient Consent service that was initially rolled out for reproductive healthcare was expanded to additional treatment areas such as doctors performing routine endoscopies to surgeons working on risky spinal surgery. The service helps healthcare organizations reduce regulatory and legal risk by documenting important communications, such as treatment options, possible risks, and agreement to treatment.

With the OX Patient Consent service, healthcare organizations can request consent signatures from patients or third parties, such as donors or partners, from anywhere. Signers no longer need to travel to the clinic to sign paperwork. This saves time while eliminating the risk and expense of travel, mailing paperwork, and scanning documents.

“One of the biggest benefits that Acrobat Sign brings to the consent process is visibility,” says Stratful. “Clinic staff can see who has opened documentation, how long they have spent looking at documents, and whether they have signed. Clinics can send reminders via email or SMS to sign documents, which helps them obtain consent as required by regulation that aligns with WHO guidance.”

Switching from printed documents to digital copies also supports sustainability initiatives. In vitro fertilization treatments all require at least ten documents that are five pages each. If there are around 100,000 fertility treatments per year in the United Kingdom, that’s five million pieces of paper — or over 550,000 gallons of water and nearly 200,000 pounds of wood — saved per year by digitizing documents.

Reducing risks for patient and clinics

Digitalization also improves data quality. Clinic staff no longer need to manually copy information from a paper document to an electronic record, reducing the risk of errors. Completed documentation is available to everyone — patients and clinicians — in the cloud, helping to ensure that everyone working with a patient has the same information.

The service is robust and healthcare organizations can start using it right away to handle standard consent questions. It is also flexible enough that clinicians can request custom functionality depending on the type of consent required for each clinic. Integrations with Microsoft makes it familiar and simple for clinics to conduct video consultations, review paperwork, and obtain consent within a single system.

“Cybersecurity is critical when dealing with sensitive healthcare data, and one of the reasons that we chose Acrobat Sign is for its strong commitment to security,” says Kosobucki.

“Combined with the security of the Microsoft 365 environment, we can keep forms secure while obtaining consent from anywhere with an audit trail.”

Expanding consent services abroad

With OX.DH consent services taking off in the U.K., the organization aims to expand services to support clinics around the world. OX.DH is currently working with authorities in Australia to launch OX Patient Consent service for Australian clinics. At the same time, developers are working to add more functionality to the service, such as using automation to take over manual tasks such as sending out consent reminders or handling recurring invoices associated with stored samples.

“This type of digital consent is good for both patients and clinics,” says Stratful. “It helps patients be more informed about shared healthcare decisions thus reducing risk associated with failure to warn and legal challenges. With Microsoft and Adobe, we’re helping clinics expand digital services that empower patients.”

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Content as a Service - Wednesday, February 15, 2023 at 14:50 (no-lazy)

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