Why a website can benefit a GP Surgery.
Report: Why a website can benefit a GP Surgery
What is a website?
This would be a collection of files supported by the World Wide Web. Usually these files consist of, but are not limited to, HTML files, ASP files, PHP files, graphic files, and others. To view a site, it is required to have a World Wide Web browser. The two most popular browsers today are Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. There are a variety of types of web sites. Many people have personal sites that give information about them, sometimes including resumes for potential employers. Also, most businesses have sites on the WWW in which they can promote their products. Other companies have stores online using shopping cart software to sell products on their site. No matter what the intent, using websites is a good way to promote oneself or one's business.
Now that we have established what a website is, we can look at all the advantages and disadvantages to having a website for a GP surgery.
Advantages will include:
* 24 hour access on-line
* On-line appointment bookings
* Time and cost saver
* Another level of communication i.e. e-mail
Disadvantages will include:
* Not very secure
* Patients need to be computer literate
* Poor or no internet
* Prescriptions
24 hour access on-line: this is an advantage to both the surgery and the patients. The reason for this is that if people (patients and doctors alike) need information and they need it quickly, then the website will be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The website will contain all forms of information, and will also have cures to diagnose minor symptoms. This will also be very beneficial because minor and not so severe symptoms can be cured in the comfort of your own home, whereas the more severe and major symptoms can be diagnosed via the surgery.
On-line appointment bookings: this is an advantage to both the surgery and its patients. For example if a patient wishes to make an appointment to see the doctor, he or she will be able to do it from home. This is good for the patient for the reason that they won't have to leave their homes. This is good for the receptionist at the surgery for the reason that their will be less patients to tend to as the remainder are booking their appointments on-line; at home.
Time saver: this is an advantage to the patient and ...
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On-line appointment bookings: this is an advantage to both the surgery and its patients. For example if a patient wishes to make an appointment to see the doctor, he or she will be able to do it from home. This is good for the patient for the reason that they won't have to leave their homes. This is good for the receptionist at the surgery for the reason that their will be less patients to tend to as the remainder are booking their appointments on-line; at home.
Time saver: this is an advantage to the patient and the surgery. Time can be saved by the patient because if the patient needs to be diagnosed he or she can very easily check on the website for the cure, if the cure is unavailable on the web, it is then considered to be more than a minor issue, hence a visit to the surgery will be required. But time will be saved if the cure for the patient is on the web and can be diagnosed from home. Time will also be saved by the surgery if the patients issue is a minor, hence having being cured from home; the receptionist and the doctor won't have to deal with a minor problem, hence time can be spent more on the severer patients.
Cost saver: the overall costs of the surgery can be saved long-term. As we know that setting up a decent and secure website can be quite expensive, but is minor compared to the costs of trying to keep the surgery open, even for a few extra hours. Costs will be saved by the patient as they will not have to leave their house and go into their cars, hence petrol will be saved, pollution will be minimized and expenditure will be decreased.
Another level of communication: this is a good thing because it will give the patients an alternative to any other means of communication. For example if a patient needs information (vital or not), instead of using the telephone or going to the surgery in person they can very simply send an e-mail, and then wait for a reply. At times the telephone will be busy and the surgery will have queues, and it's at time like this one can rely on an electronic form of communication i.e. e-mail.
Not very secure: this is a disadvantage. Nowadays anything on the internet is not safe. This is because hackers will tend to break into the website and view files that are not accessible to them or anyone else. The only way that this problem can be overcome is if the website is protected by a firewall which will filter all kinds of unauthorised incoming traffic. The firewall will stop hackers and viruses from entering your computer; hence the firewall will protect the computer, its applications, the server and the overall performance of the computer and the website.
Patients need to be computer literate: a disadvantage. Patients, old or young need to be computer literate in order to completely benefit from the website. As well as this the receptionist and doctors alike need to be computer literate as well. If they are not, then they would need to be trained up, hence will result in time and money being wasted.
Poor or no internet: a disadvantage because if the patient does not have access to the internet, then he or she will not be able to take advantage of the website. This is not the only problem; some people may not have a computer, others will have a computer but with utterly slow internet speeds, whereas others will have brilliant internet speeds but overall a bad performing computer. Another bad part of this disadvantage is that if the GP surgery runs from the internet i.e. the server contains all the records of its patients, if the internet is slow then it will take very long for the information required to show on the screen due to the slow connection speed of the net.
Prescriptions: due to certain laws and legislations it is illegal to give prescriptions out over the internet. This is down to security reasons. Also at the end of the day there will be no point in issuing the prescriptions because at the moment there is no firewall that can protect the computer 100%.
After knowing the facts we had to know what other people (young and old) thought of the proposed idea. We decided to do a survey of 100 people, asking them "Would you like a website for your GP surgery?", from this question, there were three options that could be chosen "Yes", "No" and "Not bothered". The results of this survey are shown below: -
After conducting this survey, we were then required to conduct a survey of how many people actually have access to a computer. This information was required to see whether it worth having a website. The results to this are shown below: -
This website will be a very good idea because it will undertake a lot of the responsibilities that are held by the receptionist and the GP him/herself. The website will include: -
General information about the surgery, names and numbers of the doctors, what clinics are held in the surgery, location map of the surgery, a central-booking system, diagnostics for minor illnesses, a medical dictionary containing all the medical terms, a list of all the possible outcomes to an illness, a forum, where people can leave their thoughts and ask questions, a live chat room, with four available practice nurses to answer any queries, names and numbers of all the accessible to you in your area (done via postcodes), a personal identification for each and every member of the surgery to ensure privacy, an e-mailing system with a personal address for each member and much more...
Overall, from the results shown, and all the details of the website that will available, we have established a well-thought out conclusion...
The increase in communication and reduction in costs and time indicate the convenience and need for any GP to create a website, as long as all personal information of patients is protected from any kind of harm.
ATIF RIAZ - 03131435 ASSIGNMENT 1
Word Count: 1,355 words (-10%, which is allowed)
