The skyrocketed demand for online services in the Canadian healthcare sector makes medical organizations adapt to the new reality and offer online consulting services. New solutions have quickly become popular among patients, as more people tend to choose convenient online appointments over offline ones. Microsoft 365 for healthcare makes telemedicine available for businesses and fosters business growth. 

How Does Healthcare Business Benefit From Online Consultations?

Telemedicine solutions have already proven to be highly beneficial in terms of patient acquisition. Still, they also offer other advantages you can take note of: 

• New source of income. Just a few years ago, any clinic’s primary source of income was offline appointments. Now, you can have thousands of patients who are ready to obtain and pay for your services online.
• Increased recognition. Though telemedicine services are rapidly gaining popularity, there are still many trusted healthcare facilities that haven’t taken advantage of them. It’s an excellent opportunity to improve the recognition of your brand through innovation and intelligent marketing.
• Promotion of offline appointments. You don’t have to be limited by anything. Give your patients a choice: now they can get an online consultation via your web application or book an offline appointment in advance. 
• Improved user experience. When patients don’t have to leave home or call a clinic to get medical advice from a professional, they are more likely to become loyal customers. Make their lives easier by introducing an intuitive interface and a simple online booking system, and it won’t take long to start benefiting.

Key Features of an App for Online Consultations

For the past five years, the Convergine team has developed many up-to-date solutions for healthcare companies. Based on this experience, we can specify the most important characteristics a successful online consultations web app should have. Almost every feature described below can be developed using Microsoft 365 for healthcare.

• HIPAA/PIPEDA compliance. No matter which telemedicine features you are eager to introduce, web app development for online consultations is impossible without maintaining HIPAA compliance for a healthcare facility in the US or PIPEDA compliance for a Canadian company.
• Advanced data protection. This feature stems from the above-mentioned one and is a prerequisite for maintaining corresponding compliance. It enables the storage of medical data and test results so that doctors can easily access them from a protected database during an online or offline consultation.
• Online calls. Allow your patients to stay in touch with their doctors by providing a 100% secure connection for voice or video calls via your web application. The laws of the United States require you to store every call made in a healthcare web app. The recordings of the consultations should be accessible at any moment and provided upon request of the relevant authorities.
• Online scheduling. Microsoft 365 for healthcare enables adding an online scheduling feature to your web application. Thus, patients will have an opportunity to choose and book available time slots of the specialists in a few taps.
• Integration with the clinic’s CRM. All booked appointments, messages, and requests from patients made or sent via the web app will be displayed in the CRM used in your clinic.