“Private healthcare is changing to meet the needs of patients and so our customers need a new kind of practice management software,” says Nicola Kingsmill, Practice Management Product Owner. In this update, Nicola explains how she and the development team have embraced this challenge, starting with providing customers with a new look appointments system.
Why are you rewriting ePractice, your practice management software?
Our practice management software (PMS) has been a trusted solution within private healthcare for a long time. It’s used extensively for invoicing and payments, as managing these financial transactions is important for healthcare businesses, but times are changing and our customers need more from us.
The rapid growth of the private healthcare market – we processed a record 11.4million invoices last year and projecting year-on-year growth of 3% in 2025 – brings great opportunities as well as challenges. For example, a report into the future of healthcare by the Independent Healthcare Providers Network (IHPN)1 refers to the ‘Amazon Prime’ generation, where consumer expectations around access and speed help to shape their behaviours.
The pressure is on providers to deliver consistently high-quality, patient-centred care from start to finish and they need a PMS that sets them up for success. Our mission is to transform ePractice so we can support our customers throughout the patient journey.
Why did you start the transformation with Appointments?
It made sense to focus on how to make the beginning of the patient journey as efficient and easy for customers as possible. The original appointments section reflected the way practices used to communicate and manage their diaries, but the new system is geared to the digital age with features like automated SMS and email confirmation as well as access to online appointments.
How does Appointments signal the future for ePractice?
It shows how we’re raising the bar in terms of user experience and features. The bright new design and user interface makes the system a pleasure to use and gives users easy access to real-time information to help them do their job. You can see this in action in our demo.
However, it’s only the beginning. Like the rest of the system, we create, build and maintain Appointments, giving us the scope to integrate more Healthcode Intelligence (Hi) features into every aspect of the product. We’re on a mission to harness the capabilities of AI to enhance all our products and services, including ePractice. If you see the Hi logo, it means we’ve developed an advanced, tech-powered solution to save you time and effort.
What have customers been saying about Appointments?
We’re so fortunate to have loyal customers who are willing to engage with us on product development. In fact, some of those who were using the previous appointment system joined our pilot project which involved migrating their data to the new one. Their feedback was very positive and they particularly liked the bright user interface, improved features like the waiting list and how much easier it was to add clinic sessions and appointments.
Of course, they also had plenty of suggestions and all the information that we gathered has been fed into the development roadmap.
What’s next for your practice management software?
Patient Management is next for ePractice and for this we’re working with a new player in the UK market who wants to use our system for electronic patient records (EPR) and help them manage their clinical pathways. This is a fundamental change in direction for us, turning ePractice into a powerful 360o practice management software.
There’ll be dashboards to support different users at each stage of the patient journey (reception, practitioners, prescribing, invoicing), while also offering a clearer view of who’s onsite each day, helping to enhance the overall patient experience. For example, the practitioner will get an alert if someone has been sitting in the waiting room for 20 minutes and they’ll be able to see a summary of a patient’s previous consultations from the EPR to aid continuity of care.
Another exciting addition will be online prescribing and the ability to order diagnostic tests directly from the system which will be fantastic for customers and their patients. To start, the prescription will be issued for the patient to print but we’re working with an online pharmacy provider so patients can get their medication delivered quickly, safely and at a great price too.
A digital signature facility means that prescribers will be able to securely verify their identity using details which have been set up on the system and there’ll also be smart tools giving them access to the British National Formulary (BNF) with details of the patient’s prescribing history – preventing duplication and potentially harmful interactions. I can’t wait for customers to try it all for themselves.
How would you describe the team who are developing ePractice with you?
They have a great blend of experience, skills and creative thinking and are fantastically motivated. I’m not hugely prescriptive – I like to give the team an idea and they’ll go away and work on it and present me with a really innovative solution.
What are you personally enjoying about working on this project?
Because I worked on the original ePractice, it’s satisfying to use my knowledge to steer it in this new direction. A big part of that is improving the user experience and the team and I want to make working with ePractice an enjoyable part of our customer’s day.
You can see some of the new functionality of ePractice now by watching the demo – it shows a short summary of the appointment system and gives you a flavour of the new look and feel. Our Business Development team are also happy to walk through the new appointment features with you in a 1-2-1 call.
1Independent Healthcare Providers Network 2024, Tomorrow’s world: what does the future of healthcare look like for the independent sector? Accessed 12 November 2024, <https://www.ihpn.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/IHPN-Tomorrows-World-report.pdf>
