Attend Anywhere / Near Me video consulting service evaluation 2019-2020: summary report

Background

Attend Anywhere was launched in Scotland in December 2016 as part of a wider national Technology-Enabled Care (TEC) programme, which aimed to drive the widespread adoption of technology to help plan and improve health and care services and outcomes for citizens. The TEC programme was set up to respond to the need for service transformation in the context of rising demand for health and social care; and to re-engineer services and care pathways in a more person-centric way. A key objective is to improve citizen access to health and care services from remote parts of Scotland. Attend Anywhere is intended for use by both health and social care organisations, and by both primary care (community-based health services including GPs) and secondary care (mainly hospital services). However at the time of this evaluation most activity was hospital-based, on which this report therefore has a strong focus.

The Attend Anywhere video consultations platform works via the internet. People can access a video clinic through a device, such as a laptop computer, mobile smartphone or tablet, provided that they use specified internet browsers. People use an internet link to access a 'virtual' online waiting area, where service providers meet them and provide the video consultation. This process has been designed to align with the ways in which people usually attend face to face appointments, and with established health and care processes and workflows. This is illustrated in the diagram below.^[1]