Since the pandemic, teleconsultation has established itself in Switzerland as a fully recognised medical practice. And while it is increasingly popular among adult patients, it is also finding a growing place in paediatrics, where it helps ease the burden on families and medical structures.
For Katja Berlinger, CEO of Swiss Medi Kids, this evolution is natural:
Teleconsultation has tremendous potential and could be used for many types of care.
Met in Zurich, she shares with us Swiss Medi Kids’ vision of the growing role of teleconsultations in caring for young patients.
A growing need for flexibility and relief in paediatric services
Founded in 2011, the Swiss Medi Kids paediatric walk-in centre was created to reduce the pressure on the Zurich Children’s Hospital.
Now present in Zurich, Winterthur and Lucerne, it faces a challenge shared by many centres: managing a high volume of consultations while maintaining high-quality care.
Telemedicine has naturally emerged as a response to this issue.
Teleconsultation allows us to efficiently handle very simple cases which would otherwise overload medical practices, while also reassuring parents.
For Katja Berlinger, the main goal was to find a way to optimise resources and offer fast access to care, especially for families with mobility constraints or who live far away.
OneDoc Visio: a simple, integrated solution for teleconsultation
With OneDoc Visio, Swiss Medi Kids was able to integrate teleconsultation directly into its daily organisation. The tool allows doctors to assess a child remotely, observe visible clinical signs, and gather valuable information about family dynamics.
Seeing the patient makes clinical assessment easier. Injuries or abnormalities can be detected thanks to video.
Accessible via OneDoc.ch or the app, OneDoc Visio offers families a simple experience: online appointment booking, automatic confirmation, and secure login at the time of consultation.
For professionals, implementation is seamless: no complex installation is required, and the video link is directly accessible from the OneDoc calendar.
Swiss Medi Kids uses teleconsultation for many common cases, while maintaining the option of in-person consultations for physical exams, vaccinations or specific follow-ups.
Discover the features of OneDoc Visio
The result: time savings and satisfied families
Since the introduction of teleconsultation, feedback from families has been very positive.
Parents who use video consultations seem enthusiastic. They feel better seen and heard, and appreciate the simplicity of the medical consultation.
Teleconsultation also offers a valuable alternative for international and expatriate families, who tend to be more familiar with this type of remote care.
According to Katja Berlinger, this service improves the centre’s responsiveness and parent satisfaction, while optimising the workload of the teams.
We believe that teleconsultation has strong future prospects. It has tremendous potential and could be used for many types of care.
The challenge ahead? Making this option known to as many people as possible and encouraging parents to adopt it as a natural alternative to a traditional appointment.
