Switzerland's leading online medical appointment service offers a free video consultation module in response to COVID-19

A secure, encrypted video consultation module, free until the end of the pandemic

OneDoc, Geneva's leading start-up for online medical appointments, is one of those companies that had to quickly reinvent itself at the dawn of the COVID19 crisis. Indeed, as a result of confinement, appointments booked with OneDoc doctors were divided by four at the beginning of March.

To cope, the entire OneDoc team focused on developing a video consultation module, initially scheduled for summer 2020 and implemented in less than 7 days (and 7 nights) of hard work, in collaboration with GPs and specialists, as well as medical groups including Magellan and Arsanté.

OneDoc is offering this secure, encrypted module free of charge to all its partner healthcare professionals in Switzerland until the end of the COVID-19 pandemic period, as a complement to the existing appointment scheduling module. Information security is guaranteed - the video stream is transmitted directly between doctor and patient, and does not pass through OneDoc's Swiss-based servers.

" We have received many requests from our doctors to consult their patients via video consultations rather than physically in their practices, in order to limit the spread of Covid-19 as much as possible. It was therefore logical for us to mobilize strongly in order to be able to offer this new mode of consultation to all doctors partnering our platform" announces Arthur Germain, CEO and co-founder of OneDoc.

"Since the first cases were announced on our territory, we have been working day and night to offer this video consultation module as quickly as possible, which works just as well on a cell phone as on a computer," explains Alexandre Curreli, CTO and co-founder of OneDoc. The doctors are installed remotely by OneDoc teams. 

Easy to use for practitioners and patients alike

From the very first days of the module's launch, interest in video consultations has been growing. After three weeks, 300 healthcare professionals had registered, and over 400 video consultations were taking place every day.

Today, OneDoc has over 1,700 healthcare professionals registered on its online appointment scheduling platform, including over 300 already equipped with the video consultation module.

"I use video consultation for situations where seeing the patient is not essential. The image offers an impressive 'closeness', very different from the telephone," explains one of the first OneDoc video consultation customers, Dr. Jean-Gabriel Jeannot in Neuchâtel.

This new video consultation solution has been tested with more than 20 Geneva-based healthcare professionals, with a view to making the necessary adjustments to make it as ergonomic as possible. Patients can book an appointment for a video consultation on www.onedoc.ch. 10 minutes before the consultation, they receive a link by SMS and email to connect to the virtual consultation room, which the doctor will join for the consultation.

"It's a relief to have an additional solution to deal with this exceptional situation we're experiencing because of COVID-19," adds Christopher Chung, coordinator of the Centre médical des Acacias and FMH general internist physician. "We were able to work quickly with the OneDoc team, with whom we have already partnered for over two years on their online appointment booking module, to offer this new service to our patients."

The video consultation is billed directly by the doctor, via the health insurance company, as part of the statutory TARMED services. It is recognized by all Swiss health insurance companies. The average cost of a video consultation is CHF 50. OneDoc does not receive a percentage of this consultation. 

Read more

Find out more about OneDoc video consultation: https://about.onedoc.ch/fr/blog/onedoc-offre-la-consultation-video/

Interested healthcare professionals can register at info.onedoc.ch or send an email to: video-consultation@onedoc.ch

Find out more about OneDoc: for patients and healthcare professionals alike

OneDoc is the Swiss leader in online medical appointments, with over 1,600 partner healthcare professionals. The solution is developed exclusively in Switzerland, and hosted in several Swiss data centers to guarantee high availability and compliance with data protection laws.

Source: OneDoc CP