“Implementing the VULA mobile app at Caledon hospital to receive referrals from the surrounding facilities has been immensely beneficial.”

The app streamlines referrals to the hospital through one doctor who then has a much better idea of what is expected to arrive with emergency services. It allows asynchronous communication between health care providers at different levels of care which improves the type of feedback given and promotes building capacity. Relationships between users improve as more time is spent referring and discussing with the same health care provider numerous times. Recently we have had the allied health services join the app and have started using it for both referring and receiving patients.

Using the records of all the referrals stored on the VULA dashboard has allowed us to gain insight in referral patterns, absolute numbers of referred patients and the conversations between health care providers using the app. We look forward to continuing to use the app to promote relationship building across the district and to use the accumulated data to help improve services rendered at Caledon Hospital. In the future we hope to broaden the use of the VULA app to private health care providers and nursing practitioners.

Caledon Team

Caledon Hospital, Western Cape