Clinic Assist
Clinic Assist Software
Being an established system with many users, the CMS Sutra project team is interested in how ClinicAssist has integrated many SmartCMS functions within the Cycle 2 review period. This will offer a good sense of how a large population of GP Clinics are coping with the new HealthierSG features.
Ease of Use, NEHR and Meeting Grant Requirements
Like many other SmartCMS on the market, there is still no direct contact switch to NEHR and users will have to access through the NEHR portal. Most users are confident in ClinicAssist's ability to help meet NEHR criteria, with 83.3% rating it 3 stars and above. This positive feedback may be attributed to ClinicAssist's system prompts for diagnosis, which contribute to users' satisfaction, and these prompts help to prevent incomplete data submissions to NEHR. However, our reviewers mentioned that bugs do occur from time to time when prompts are not triggered. Some users also reported that there were isolated cases of failed vaccination submissions for claim purposes, and that manual re-submission was required in some instances. Health Plans were also not auto populating at times, and that the consistency issues could be at times confusing.
Health Plan, Inventory and HealthierSG Whitelist Drugs
In terms of Health Plan generation, our reviewers are generally satisfied with the user interface and functionality. Users are also comfortable with the auto price caps updates for HealthierSG whitelisted drugs, with over 80% of respondents rating ClinicAssist’s ability to apply the price caps at 3 stars and above. This is significant for HealthierSG clinics dealing with HealthierSG drug inventories, as mismanaged or outdated values could cost clinics monetary losses. One of our reviewers mentioned that this leaves him a peace of mind to confidently prescribe HealthierSG whitelisted drugs without fear that the clinic will need to absorb potential losses on the medications.
While our reviewers suggest that lab reports from Innoquest, Resti and Pathlabs work well with the e-report function, our CMS User Survey results revealed an interesting phenomenon in which there are uneven distribution across all ratings. This spread in opinions about the laboratory integration could be attributed to differences in clinical workflow that may see some users having favorable views of the lab report functions, while other users report negatively on it. The CMS Sutra team highly recommends GP users who are unsure about the e-report functions to check in with the ClinicAssist team to identify any potential gaps in workflow management which may contribute to integration issues.
System Stability, User Support and Perceived Value
With many users and user-created support groups, there is strong peer-to-peer assistance as well as the noticeboard feature to check for updates and fixes. Interestingly, the CMS Sutra Team has noticed once again a wide distribution of responses when users are asked if they would need technical assistance when using the ClinicAssist system. More than 30% in each of these categories: 1 to 2 stars, 3 stars and 4 to 5 stars. This may suggest that ClinicAssist is a system which could either cater to users who are adept in modern technology workflows or to less technology savvy users who may need some guidance.
Respondents have also indicated that subscription fees are a little pricey, with more than half of our User Survey respondents giving 2 stars and below rating on subscription fees, this could be a consideration for new clinics entering the market and hoping to find a more affordable system to adopt.
Summary
In summary, ClinicAssist is a well-designed system with good integration of the various HealthierSG-related functionalities. There have also been noticeable improvements since our last review with most users being able to achieve grant requirements. However, the users (depending on their needs and experience with technology) tend to have split views on the system (akin to a “you either like it or you don’t” phenomena), and the current subscription fee is considered by some to be too pricey.
To learn more or book a demo, head over to https://eclinic.com.sg/
