Emirates Hospitals Group selects Okadoc to digitise call centre, roll out telehealth platform

Emirates Hospitals Group (EHG) has picked Okadoc to roll out an online booking service and a telehealth platform, as it steps up efforts to digitise its operations in the wake of Covid-19.

Patients can now schedule and manage their appointments via the hospital’s website. Patients who previously made appointments through EHG’s call centres to now also manage their bookings online.

Okadoc’s platform is expected to reduce no shows and increase EHG’s revenues while reducing operational costs especially those associated with maintaining a call centre for appointment scheduling.

Okadoc’s white label solution is directly integrated with EHG’s healthcare information system, InterSystems TrakCare, allowing patients to view doctor’s availability in real-time to schedule and manage appointments at any time of the day. After patient bookings are made, an automatically generated confirmation and booking reminder are sent to the patients enabling them to connect online to access the information they need.

The platform further allows patients to use chat and video calls with their doctors any time of day, transfer and receive documents such as prescriptions and medical records and pay for their consultations without delays.

“In these current times, when patients are more comfortable booking consultations from the convenience of their own homes, our partnership with Emirates Hospitals Group and integration with InterSystems allowed EHG to quickly extend Okadoc’s offerings under their brand,” said Fodhil Benturquia, founder and CEO of Okadoc.

Okadoc’s white-label booking and telemedicine solution can be embedded into the healthcare providers’ websites and mobile applications and can be deployed within a matter of a few hours, the startup says. Okadoc’s technology is TRA (Telecommunications Regulatory Authority) approved, using end-to-end encryption with the cloud data hosted in the UAE, and compliant with UAE regulations, it added.

The demand for telemedicine services has surged following the Covid-19 outbreak as a result of travel restrictions and social distancing regulations. Patients are also avoiding potentially infected emergency rooms and physicians’ offices.

Okadoc, based in Dubai, announced in February the closure of its $10m Series A round, which saw the participation of a mix of institutional and private investors that included Abu Dhabi Investment Office and Ithmar Capital Partners.