Return visits of chronic disease can be made anytime anywhere, through direct online communication channel between patients and doctors. When a patient submits the application on the online platform, the doctor gets to know about his or her disease and medical records through online communication via graphics, voice and video, thus realizing online consultation and diagnosis. Based on the patient’s actual situation, an admission card, examination, medical advice for examination or drug prescription can be issued online. The patient may also log in for admission registration and bed-waiting, seeking for doctor’s advice, payment, examination appointment and medicine delivery application online.

Special outpatient clinic facilitates online prescription renewal

For patients with chronic and serious diseases such as hypertension and diabetes, it is important to ensure their continuous treatment, long-term care, and supply of medicines. The “Outpatient Section for Special Diseases” of West China Online Hospital offers online consultation, electronic prescription and drug delivery for patients needing long-term medication. Eligible patients may apply for courier delivery to home. The common drug delivery is available within Greater Chengdu City, and the cold chain drug delivery is available in areas within Chengdu Raocheng Expressway in 48 hours.

This service has been launched since February 1. During the epidemic, registration fee is waived. SF Express provides free drug delivery services for patients, which ensures their follow-up diagnosis and medication without the need of contact.

So far, 126 doctors have seen 8450 outpatients online, and issued 6154 effective electronic prescriptions, 4796 of which were delivered successfully.

Special Free Clinic for fighting COVID-19

It is critical to divert patients and reduce cross-infection during the epidemic. To this end, West China Online Hospital has opened a Special Free Clinic for COVID-19 Prevention, which is to provide free consultations for people in need.

From January 26th, 200 doctors from the Mental Health Center, Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine Department, Infectious Disease Center, Vascular Surgery Department, Cardiac Surgery Department, Rheumatology and Immunology Department, Endocrinology and Metabolism Department, Thoracic Surgery, Gastrointestinal Surgery, Neurology, Urology, Dermatology and Venerology of WCH will provide online consultations about the epidemic for patients. A follow-up team has been set up for patients with suspected fever during the consultation.

Full-process supervision guarantees safety of medical treatment  

The safety of online diagnosis and treatment is always the focus to the patients' concern. How do you ensure the doctor’s qualification? Is the drug quality good? Can the medicines be delivered safely?

According to the new regulations, the clinicians (teams) of the Online Hospital are all licensed physicians of WCH with the Hospital’s offline outpatient qualification and CA Certification. All prescriptions issued by the doctors must be approved by full-time pharmacist in the WCH Pharmacy; drug allocation and distribution are entrusted to qualified pharmacies affiliated to WCH; drug delivery after online diagnosis and treatment is undertaken by logistics companies that have professional qualifications and meet national standards of drug transport quality.

At the same time, every consultation and prescription and treatment activity of doctors will be recorded for traceability. The online medical service supervision platform established by the Health Commission of Sichuan Province is introduced, permitting to upload relevant materials and raw data as required, and conduct quality control of all diagnosis and treatment activities.

The official launch of West China Online Hospital of Sichuan University will build a new model of diagnosis, treatment and services to realize online follow-up consultations, medical advice and drug delivery, so as to expand medical service capabilities. In the future, WCH will also continue to explore a path to “Internet + Medical Health” and focus on the treatment needs of patients, so as to provide more high-quality services and make greater contributions to improving the equalization and accessibility of medical services.