Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are on the rise in Australia. The last five years have seen syphilis rise by more than 100% and gonorrhoea by 86%.
As Victoria’s only free, full-time provider of public health services and a leader in STI and HIV research and education, Melbourne Sexual Health Centre (MSHC) faces increasing demand, with annual consultations quadrupling in the last 20 years to hit 60,000. Additionally, each person seen has much higher rates of infections today compared with previous years. With most of MSHC’s demand coming in the form of walk-in services for high-risk individuals, the service was experiencing a morning rush, with queues out the door, long wait times, overcrowded waiting areas, an increased risk of aggressive client behaviour, and overloaded clinicians.
Access to healthcare is key
MSHC’s Director and Professor of Public Health at Monash University, Professor Christopher Fairley, explains the importance of the service: “Access to healthcare is the single, strongest determinant of the amount of STIs in the population. STI services are the most powerful control strategy that governments have, and the rise in demand for our services was outstripping our ability to meet this demand. We’re making significant changes to improve how we deliver services, starting with implementing a Digital Front Door.”
The Digital Front Door: A multi-lingual experience
Supplied by Five Faces, the Digital Front Door is a multi-lingual solution that digitises patient triage, self-service appointment bookings, patient screening, and other forms. Digital workflows can accommodate both walk-in patients and those with pre-booked appointments, while complementing existing call centre workflows. Patients can book appointments on their mobile device and also register their details and clinical history via digital forms.
The secure system enhances patient privacy and comfort, while allowing more effective triaging between symptomatic and asymptomatic patients – ensuring that symptomatic patients are prioritised, while reducing unnecessary wait times for asymptomatic patients.
Self-service booking and screening with multi-lingual interface
Walk-in appointment patient workflow
The solution integrates with MSHC’s eMR, which is a custom solution. Due to its modular, low-code design, the software easily accommodates changes and new use cases, making it highly adaptable.
Results and next steps
Rashidur Rahman, Digital Health Technology Manager at MSHC and project lead, explained that the Digital Front Door is designed to remove barriers to care, enhance client privacy, and enhance the staff and client experience to create efficiency.
“We selected Five Faces as the Digital Front Door provider due to the easy configurability of the solution, the modern interface, and its accessibility and multi-lingual nature,” he said.
“The most significant outcome of the solution is reducing our administration workload. By providing a digital channel to make appointment bookings, our telephone bookings are down 95%, which reduces the administration workload of two nurses. We’ve been able to reduce our front desk receptionists from six to two, reallocating four staff to take on more complex patients and tasks. Our triage process is faster, there is now no wait time for appointment bookings, and we are offering better support for multi-lingual clients.”
Looking to the future, MSHC is making significant improvements to service delivery to meet current and future demand. This includes an online STI hub for asymptomatic individuals who want STI testing, and extending telehealth and the service’s GP partner network.
For the Digital Front Door, future enhancements include showing clients estimated wait times and allowing them to leave the wait area and be called back when it’s their turn. Improving no-shows for appointments and exploring AI tools are also on the agenda.
