Prescription for success

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This article was published 16/10/2024 (349 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Manitoba company that offered free virtual doctor appointments at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic is seeing more patients than ever — and people across Canada are taking notice.

QDoc Inc. logged 330 patients earlier this week, a single-day record for the health-care company that connects Manitobans with local physicians via an online video platform. It has grown from fewer than 100 appointments in 2021, the year it launched, to 21,000 in 2022 and 52,000 in 2023, the company reports.

The efforts are being recognized: earlier this month, co-founder Dr. Norman Silver, a pediatric emergency medicine specialist, was named one of 10 Prairie entrepreneurs of the year in the highly regarded EY Entrepreneur of the Year program. He was the only Manitoban in the group.

It’s another in a stream of awards Silver and co-founder David Berkowits, a medical technology expert, have received since launching QDoc in late 2021, including multiple CIO Awards that celebrate Canadian organizations using IT in innovative ways.

It’s one thing to offer virtual appointments with doctors, it’s another to manage a system with all the technological, confidentiality and human resource challenges that such an enterprise entails.

QDoc’s digital platform uses proprietary software that notifies participating doctors of patients in the queue and connects them via encrypted audio and video.

There are 145 doctors in its system — none of whom are full-time — and about 45 nurse practitioners.

QDoc is in the midst of its second nurse practitioner pilot project with the province, which has greatly enhanced the firm’s ability to see more patients.

While it’s not guaranteed to be a permanent feature, Silver said the efficiency for Manitoba Health in having nurse practitioners on the system ought to make it a winner.

“We don’t have all the data yet, but compared to where they would have to go otherwise … I’m sure there will be significant cost savings,” said Silver, who is also a founder of the Minor Illness & Injury Clinic on Corydon Avenue in Winnipeg.

Silver and Berkowits have built their own video communication platform for patient/physician communications, including digital booking systems. A billing system will be launched next month.

All will integrate with electronic medical records that allow the doctors to chart easily and send referrals, prescriptions and notes to patients.

“We don’t have all the data yet, but compared to where they would have to go otherwise … I’m sure there will be significant cost savings.”–Dr. Norman Silver

Its software is already responsible for about $24 million worth of billing to the province. The plan is to start marketing it to third-party doctors and clinics.

The company is still operating in the red, but Silver and Berkowits have retained more than 70 per cent ownership. It has applied for significant funding from federal economic development body PrairiesCan, which would mean it won’t have to raise more equity in the near future.

The company had to do some downsizing in January, but with a staff of 22, including close to a dozen software developers, QDoc has a visible runway over the next couple of years to get it solidly ensconced into the health-care system, its leadership said.

Although the initial plan was to scale the system across the country, Silver said that was put on the back burner when they better understood the kind of technological foundation required.

“We’re starting to look around now as to what (other) province might make sense,” he said, but such a move would still be a couple of years away.

Another noteworthy testimony to QDoc’s success is its ability to navigate the dense bureaucracy that exists in the health-care system.

Silver said at one meeting with provincial health-care officials, he and Berkowits and another QDoc associate arrived to face more than 20 department representatives.

“The minister and senior officials have been great and very supportive, but the middle layer is tough to get through,” he said.

Silver noted he’s particularly pleased with the collegial network being created at QDoc, with the medical professionals supporting each other, especially after the addition of nurse practitioners to the platform.

“What I find so gratifying about all this is a sense of what we can be doing in the future (for health-care delivery).”–Dr. Norman Silver

The ability to help patients in rural and remote regions was always part of the plan and the company said it has recently been assisting remote clinics in the North. A Flin Flon clinic now sends patients to QDoc when it gets too busy.

After booking 52,000 appointments in 2023, Silver expects to hit 65,000 this year and approach 100,000 in 2025.

A QDoc iPhone app was introduced in July, and the next project will be to integrate it with the health data a smartphone can already collect.

“What I find so gratifying about all this is a sense of what we can be doing in the future (for health-care delivery),” Silver said. “As long as we stay alive, it will be very cool.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca