Refugees at the reception locations in Oisterwijk and Moergestel can use the Medicoo app for their healthcare questions. Through this app from Medicinfo, refugees receive health advice in their own language.

The automatic translation function within the app allows both patient and healthcare provider to communicate in their own language. Medicinfo's medical team, consisting of nurses and GPs, provides medical advice via chat. For situations where the patient needs to be physically assessed and when medication is needed, mutual agreements have been made with various GP practices in the region. In this way, we hope to provide refugees with the care they need and reduce the burden on local GPs.

Like many other municipalities, the municipality of Oisterwijk offers shelter to people who fled the war in Ukraine. At the reception site in Oisterwijk, around 250 - 300 people are temporarily staying there. And in Moergestel about 50 to 100 refugees. Because they too need GP care, the municipality, together with the GHOR (part of the Midden- en West-Brabant Safety Region) and the health care group, has decided to offer Medicoo from Medicinfo. In this way, care can be provided quickly and in their own language.

"West Zeeuws-Vlaanderen is one of the most ageing areas in the Netherlands. There is a severe shortage of GPs and this will only increase: five out of seven practice owners are expected to retire within five years. Because of the rural nature of the area and the limited provision of public transport, a relatively high number of visits are made. In short: pressure on care is already high throughout the year.

Every summer, we also welcome another 30,000 holidaymakers to our region. In 2021, an average of 20 tourists a day called on the GP care in our practice. A solution had to be found to cope with the peak summer load and reduce the workload. That's why we started talking to Medicinfo about using the Medicoo app to deal with tourists' health queries."

As a result, 50% of initial healthcare queries are resolved by Medicinfo without the intervention of the GP practice. Without this app, all Ukrainians would call the doctor's assistant directly.

That immediately caused problems. Because many practices are full. "The need is very great," knows GP Anniek Masman. "So you set the bar high. Because if you as a GP say 'yes' to one refugee, 250 men from a reception site know where to find you."

"That really happened," says Ellenbroek. "A Tilburg GP even had Ukrainian patients from Eindhoven at the door."

An additional problem is that refugees do not fit into a standard 10-minute consultation, as you are faced with language and cultural issues. Masman: "They are used to something else. Here, the GP is a gatekeeper. You go there first. In Ukraine, they go straight to the specialist in the hospital."

Something really needed to be done, the Tilburg municipality and Primacura, the umbrella club for GP care in central Brabant, knew. They contacted Medicinfo in Tilburg. They have a medical team that specialises in remote care. In the province of Zeeland, they support GPs via an app. Holidaymakers who are ill can ask a question in their own language via the app.

The demand for care is increasing due to, among other things, an ageing population and, related to this, the number of patients with chronic conditions. The shortage of GPs in the Netherlands will further increase in the coming years. By 2023, several regions are expected to have too few GPs. So fewer and fewer GPs to provide more and more complex care. Although this challenge does not seem very prominent at the moment, some GPs are already sounding the alarm.

The seaside town of Ouddorp on Goeree-Overflakkee has about 9,000 residents, but during a good tourist season, that sometimes adds up to 40,000 temporary residents. And then there are the many day trippers who report to GP practice Kop van 't Eiland with a wasp sting or sprained ankle. In 2020, another unpredictable factor was added; corona.

This summer, tourists in large parts of West Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, Walcheren and the Bevelanden can ask their healthcare questions via the Medicoo app. They will then receive medical advice via chat, in their own language. Recently, the Medicoo app, which has previously been successfully deployed for tourists, namely automatic translation. As tourists are helped through the app, a large proportion of healthcare questions can already be solved online. Thus, the run-up to local GP practices is reduced.

During the high season, there is a substantial influx of tourists in the province of Zeeland. This makes it busier in GP practices. For the Zeeland GP Cooperative (ZHCO-Periscaldes), Nucleuszorg and the GPs in West Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, these were reasons to work with Medicinfo looking at a way to offer digital care for tourists. By deploying the Medicoo app, GP practices will be less burdened and only have to help tourists who need to visit a local practice for physical examinations.

For the practice team, deploying the healthcare app Medicoo was a way to overcome a shortage of capacity and be more accessible to patients. Particularly for skin complaints, questions about ankle/foot problems, information about vaccinations and psychological complaints, patients use the app to ask their questions. In addition, more women than men use the app. While it is often assumed that younger people in particular are open to digital solutions, remarkably many people in the 50-80 age group use the app.

Robbert Zijl, GP at Pallion GP practice in Hulst, talks about Medicoo's added value for his practice: "It's great to see that many people have now discovered the app and are using it. In the beginning, everyone had to get used to referring people who find the waiting time too long, for example, to the app. But now this is quite natural for the assistants with satisfied patients as a result. We are aware that some patients find it exciting to ask their health question via an app. Fortunately, we always get positive experiences back from people who did try it."

Through the chat function, patients receive personalised advice from the medical team at Medicinfo, the company behind Medicoo. When necessary, patients can then video call a GP. For both patients and practice staff, this offers many advantages. For the GP practice, it helps to reduce the workload as the first, non-urgent questions are already taken care of via the app.

Robbert Zijl adds: "We always receive a message from Medicoo when someone has contacted them so that we can stay informed about the well-being of our patients. If required, we can take over care in response to such a message. For us in the practice, it is nice to know that in times of very busy times, people can still get prompt advice about their health. This can prevent a lot of anxiety. By using Medicoo, we can better focus on the complex care questions."