Welcome to the Fall edition of The Pulse! Just as leaves transform into vibrant hues during Fall, reflecting the beauty of change, Maple is evolving to showcase new strengths and innovations. Let’s dive in!
Team Changes: Here’s the Latest
Director of Medical Affairs
We are pleased to announce the expansion of Dr. Laura Caracas' responsibilities to act as our Director of Medical Affairs on a part-time basis, reporting to Dr. Brett Belchetz. Dr. Caracas will focus on supporting all providers practicing on Maple — ensuring they have an excellent experience while delivering high-quality care on the platform.
Welcome New Team Members
Kat Tsiofas, Manager, Provider Network Operations: Kat will oversee the day-to-day management and operations of our providers and the overall network, ensuring its efficiency and implementing strategies for network expansion and improvement.
Vineet Gupta, Senior Manager, Virtual Care Services: Vineet’s role involves strategically planning, implementing, and managing Maple's telemedicine services to ensure they meet patients' needs while supporting our providers to deliver high-quality care.
Farewell to a Valued Team Member
Erica Patulli, Provider Network Specialist: Erica has embarked on a new career path and has ceased to offer assistance to the Provider Network Operations team. If you require support, another dedicated member of the provider team is readily available to help. Please feel free to contact us at [email protected] without any hesitation.
Maple Town Hall Provider Panel
We just wrapped our biannual company town hall which featured a panel of Maple providers. Our deepest gratitude to Drs. Lo, Caracas and Talwar for taking part and sharing their invaluable knowledge, experiences and feedback.
In our recent panel discussion, Maple team members from all departments engaged in a meaningful conversation on what quality care looks like from the perspective of our providers in a virtual health setting. Key themes centered around building trust and rapport with patients, ensuring a seamless patient experience, and striving for continuous improvement in virtual care delivery.
Our providers emphasized that quality in virtual care is not just about platform performance or clinical outcomes, but about fostering genuine connections with patients, even across digital platforms. By integrating these practices into our care systems, we strengthen the overall patient experience and set a higher standard for healthcare excellence.
This panel has deepened our collective understanding of what it means to deliver exceptional virtual care, fostering a commitment to ongoing improvement and quality across all teams at Maple.
Product Updates Reminders
We unveiled some exciting new features this past quarter to enhance your experience on our platform! Here’s a recap of some of the changes:
Update to the Telemedicine Consent Process
In the past quarter, we introduced a significant enhancement designed to reduce administrative tasks for providers. The new system automatically captures patient consent for telemedicine during consult submission, eliminating the need for providers to manually request consent in the chat. This improvement allows providers to focus fully on delivering exceptional patient care.
Important Reminder: Patients cannot submit a consultation request without providing consent, ensuring providers can move forward with confidence, knowing that the necessary permissions are secured upfront.
This feature is now live and available across all specialties, with the exception of VirtualCareNS and HealthPEI UVC. For these specialties, providers should continue obtaining patient consent directly in chat as per the current process.
Prescription Renewal Improvement
In our continuous effort to enhance patient care and improve the provider experience, patients are now able to more efficiently request a prescription renewal, making it easier for providers to review them.
Patient Experience
A “Renew prescription” button will appear 30 days after a prescription has been ordered, allowing patients to request a renewal easily.
Provider Experience
Providers are expected to adhere to standards of practice and conduct the necessary patient examination and documentation.
A prescription card describing the last medication prescribed will be available in the triage room for providers to review.
A new section, “For your review,” streamlines a provider’s key actions to fulfill the prescription renewal request. This will help reduce the number of clicks for providers and help pre-fill prescription details.
Providers can now issue prescriptions based on a patient's prescription history, limited to past prescriptions recorded on the Maple platform.
Automated ID and Health Card Verification (OHIP visits only)
Our automated ID and health card verification feature is designed to streamline the intake process by removing manual steps. This update allows users to verify their information and request their first consultation within 15 minutes of signing up, significantly speeding up the process to consult with a doctor. An added benefit is reducing billing rejections, helping ensure that our providers get paid on time.
Maple Membership Expanded
We’re thrilled to announce the successful launch of our new membership subscription as of August 27th, 2024! This marks a major milestone, as Maple’s subscription-based service, which was initially available in Ontario, is now accessible to individuals and families across the rest of Canada, excluding Quebec.
A huge thank you to our provider network for their dedication throughout this launch, including to those providers who participated in our pre-rollout testing. As we look to the future, we're always striving for improvement and welcome your thoughts and feedback to help us continue to grow and innovate.