Press release of 16.1.2021

At a time of chaotic preparation for the organisation of the covid vaccination, GPs across the country are beginning to implement the Emmy virtual nurse system, which is already helping them to mediate communication with their patients

Emmy can already make appointments for any vaccination, and teaching Emmy to make an appointment for a covida vaccination was a matter of two minutes, says Emmy co-founder Ondřej Sobotka, MD, himself a GP. Emmy is unique in that it asks the patient the questions the doctor needs to know when setting up the request. This way, Emmy makes sure the patient meets the criteria for vaccination. It also lets the GP know that a patient is making an appointment from their records. This is a major handicap of the central ordering system, which is why GPs do not wish to have patients ordering through this central system.

Emmy is already helping GP practices with ordering for antigen testing, which would otherwise add a huge additional administrative burden associated with ordering. It is not only hospitals that are now running at full speed, but also GPs who are caring for large numbers of patients so that they can manage their illness at home and not have to visit hospitals. "We are currently caring for patients who, in another time and in a normal world, would have been sent to hospital a long time ago. But at the moment there is no room for them in hospital. A large number of people cannot reach us every day. Emmy will allow patients to contact us at all," says David Halata, MD, a village GP and member of the board of the Society of General Medicine.

The GPs are keen to offer help in inoculating the population with the covid vaccine. In some parts of the country, they are even managing to provide the vaccine to GP surgeries so that they can vaccinate their patients. This is more comfortable for patients and also brings greater safety, as GPs know their patients and have their complete records. After the first experience with the central ordering system, many seniors are in uncertainty because they have not received an appointment and it is not yet clear how they will find out about the possibility of getting an appointment.

Organising vaccinations in the GP surgery can be very easily arranged by the virtual nurse Emmy, who can also offer patients the option of other uses, such as simply ordering a prescription or an appointment. "From our experience so far, we can see that patients have got used to the new way of electronically submitting their requests via the Emmy virtual nurse and even senior patients are enjoying it. There are always patients who don't like to communicate online, but there are patients in all age groups." says Eva Šubrtová Dis., a nurse from MUDr. Sobotka's office.

The first analyses of the use of the virtual nurse Emma in the first three surgeries show a really fast acceptance by patients. Already in the first weeks after the introduction of Emma in the surgeries, patients were forwarding their requests in up to 80% of all cases. In only about a quarter of cases did patients contact the surgeries by telephone.