When the snow piled up in New Westminster last week, so did the number of people who lost access to medical attention.
Most medical clinics and doctors’ offices were actually closed during the worst of the snow on Jan. 15, and many residents were unable to get around during the entire week due to snowy and icy conditions.
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“But people’s medical needs don’t just stop,” says Dr. Anita Natarajan, a family physician.
Natarajan is virtual doctor who has now left the world of a “physical practice” – she was a family doctor in New Westminster for 17 years – to use virtual technology to conduct face-to-face video consultations with patients in New West and beyond.
Finding a family doctor continues to be one of the biggest challenges B.C. residents face when it comes to health care. In fact, nearly 800,000 British Columbians are currently without a family doctor.
Natarajan works with Babylon by TELUS Health and the technology is helping people who don’t have a family doctor connect with one.
All you need is a smartphone.
Through Babylon by TELUS Health, B.C. residents can use the AI-powered Symptom Checker, which draws from over 500 million streams of medical knowledge to ask users questions about their symptoms and provides information on courses of action.
If they need to see a doctor, users can then book appointments for face-to-face virtual video calls with locally-licensed physicians like Natarajanright on the app. This consultation is covered by B.C. MSP.
Babylon by TELUS Health also enables users to have prescriptions filled at the pharmacy of their choice and access doctor consultation notes, video consult recordings and referrals for diagnostic tests or specialist appointments, when needed.
If you are having symptoms such as chest pains, a patient still needs to go to the ER, says Natarajan.
“But for pretty much everything else, a patient can use this service.”
Patients can even read the detailed notes Natarajan makes based on the consultation, which she says are written in plain language. Patients can also access a video recording of their consultation, which is a huge bonus when patients want to remember what the doctor has told them.
“We’re basically giving British Columbians another option,” she said.
In a survey of Babylon by TELUS Health users who completed a virtual consultation with a local physician, 88% of respondents said that had they not been able to see a doctor through the Babylon by TELUS Health app, they would have sought another form of medical care (emergency room visit, visit to family doctor, or walk in clinic visit), 94% of agreed that the app was easy to use, and 92% said their main request was resolved by the end of their consultation.
Babylon by TELUS Health can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store and Google Play. For more information on Babylon and TELUS Health, visit telus.com/Babylon.
