Bluebird's Dropbox

Bluebird's electronic Dropbox is a lightweight applet that allows you to effortlessly produce and securely transfer a patient's clinical information to a colleague. This free service not only improves efficiency, but also cuts practice costs associated with printing and mailing letters to colleagues.

Download the full article as it appeared in CME January 2007  Vol.25  No.1

Benefit to your practice .

• Effortless production of high quality medico-legal documents - extremely important in the increasingly litigious clinical environment.
• Organized archive of those documents for instant, secure access from any computer in the world. No paper required, no filing.
• Speedy communication with your referral base or consultants.

Features

• No software to maintain or backup
• Regularly updated templates for all specialties.

Requirements

• Internet connection
• Windows 98 or better

How does one apply?

• If you are not currently subscribed and reading lab results on Bluebird's secure web site please download the application forms                          and fax to 0866 70 80 74.
• Once reading reports, send an email to dropbox@bluebird.co.za requesting the droplet application.

Bluebird's Dropbox facilitates the timely interchange of data between otherwise incompatible health record systems and, by storing and organising clinical documents, and providing secure and simple access, communication between doctors participating in a patient's care, becomes simple, inexpensive and extremely efficient.

While GPs, in particular, often experience delayed access to consultation reports, it is also unreasonable to expect specialists to do their jobs efficiently without the following information:

• history of the problem/s leading to the referral
• relevant lab and imaging data
• purpose of the referral

Many doctors are frustrated at not having access to information previously documented by colleagues. The current system is not only archaic and inaccurate, but dangerous, time consuming, and extremely expensive. To optimise safe and cost-effective care, relevant, historic, clinical information must be readily available to the current doctor treating that patient. As the core coordinator of patient care, it is important for the family doctor to be able to access pertinent clinical information previously documented by a range of specialists quickly and easily.

It is important to allow every doctor (including those with minimal infrastructure) to communicate with every other doctor. However, it is certain that, in the foreseeable future, not all doctors will adopt compatible EMR systems, so EMR's will not solve the communication conundrum.

Convert the original documents so that they are:

• organised in a database
• easily, but securely accessible by the physician/s involved (without special hardware or software)
• Display the documents on a secure website accessible only to the doctor sending the report and to the doctor/s to whom the document was addressed.  This website would use the internet banking model to ensure security. Click here to test drive.  
• Use "demo" as both account name and password