Could you introduce yourself in a few words?
I am Dr Julia Fidry, a general practitioner specializing in sleep medicine.
How do you prepare for your medical consultations today?
In my daily practice, I use pre-consultation via Aldebaran, interconnected with my MadeForMed calendar, with the aim of preparing my consultations in advance in order to optimize medical time and improve the quality of care.
For several years, I have made it a habit to check my schedule the day before so that I can anticipate patients’ needs.
The integration of pre-consultation has made it possible to structure this organization and make it much more effective, by giving me access to information that can be used directly before even meeting the patient.
How does the pre-consultation improve your medical practice organization?
My practice is divided between general medicine and sleep medicine, and the pre-consultation integrates very well into both of these fields.
It allows me to arrive at the consultation with information already structured, which makes the organization more efficient and facilitates decision-making.
What is the impact of pre-consultation in sleep medicine?
In sleep medicine, it allows me to have the essential information in advance, notably the patient's medical history as well as standardized questionnaires concerning sleepiness, fatigue, mood, and insomnia.
This information is particularly valuable because it allows me to assess, before the consultation, whether tests such as polygraphy are indicated or whether to set up a sleep diary.
I can thus prepare the patient's care pathway and anticipate the logistics, including the management of recording devices.
I arrive at the consultation with a structured view of the situation, which allows me to be more precise and more effective in my decisions.
How do you use it in general practice?
In general practice, the pre-consultation allows me to know in advance the reason for the consultation and to anticipate a number of actions.
For example, I can prepare prescription renewals, anticipate imaging requests in the context of joint pain, or adjust a medication treatment.
In some cases, especially for administrative procedures such as MDPH files or other documents to fill out, I can even pre-fill the items the day before, which means that on the day of the consultation I only need to read through and validate them with the patient.
What impact does this have on your medical time?
This organization is based on a principle that is essential to me: the consultation must be finished by the end of the appointment.
Thanks to the work done beforehand through the pre-consultation, a large part of the tasks is already completed.
The consultation then becomes a time for discussion, validation, and adjustment, and I very strongly limit the work to be done afterward.
This improves both my efficiency, my comfort at work, and the quality of the relationship with the patient.
What is the adoption rate of pre-consultation among your patients?
The completion rate for pre-consultations is about 60% among my patient base, which is nevertheless rather elderly.
This result is encouraging and depends on active involvement on our part: I do not hesitate to follow up with patients when necessary, and we remind people in the waiting room of the importance of completing the questionnaires.
The more information is completed beforehand, the smoother and more relaxed the consultation is.
How does the pre-consultation fit in with your digital tools and artificial intelligence?
In addition, I incorporate this data into my use of an AI-based consultation assistant.
The elements from the pre-consultation, as well as telemonitoring documents or summaries of previous consultations, are integrated into the context for the AI.
This allows me to have a structured reminder of the important elements and to improve continuity of care.
This organization is particularly useful in consultations requiring the drafting of letters or reports, especially in sleep medicine, because it allows me to produce these documents directly during the consultation, quickly and smoothly.
What is your overall feedback on using pre-consultation?
In the end, pre-consultation has become a central tool in my organization.
It allows me to anticipate, structure my consultations, save time and, above all, refocus medical time on what matters most: the exchange with the patient and clinical decision-making.
The more it is used, the more the consultation becomes efficient and fluid, and this allows me to be more proactive and less reactive as consultations go by.
