A new digital medical service trialled at a Hamilton early childhood centre has gone national to more than 160 Best Start centres.
The iMoko app is the brainchild of health campaigner and former New Zealander of the Year Dr Lance O'Sullivan, whose mission is to break down barriers to treatment, Seven Sharp reports.
It works by first having a trained daycare worker gather the details of a child's ailment and enters the information into the app.
The information is then sent to a team of qualified doctors who assess the condition and supply a solution. A prescription can be ready for parents to pick up at the end of the day.
"Globally, digital health and virtual health are coming to the fore," Dr O'Sullivan said.
"What we did was digitise these nursing and medical services to enable these services to be more readily available."
Best Start in Hamilton has been trialling the system for a few months.
"A lot of our children come from disadvantaged homes. And they come presenting all sorts of ailments that could easily be fixed," said Wayne Wright, founder of the Best Start early childhood education and childcare centres.
A teacher at the Hamilton centre said children come in with conditions such as school sores, ringworm, eczema and head lice.
She said parents have come to rely on and trust the program, "and know that we teachers that are doing the iMoko, it's come from a place of love and care".
The kids are healthier and the system is also a blessing for busy parents.
One mother said: "I'm a single mum, I work full time, I don't always have time to come and drop everything and pick him up when he's sick. So for them to diagnose him through iMoko and for me to be able to go and pick a prescription once I finish work, yeah, it works perfectly for me."
Dr O'Sullivan said the system now serves close to 10,000 children across New Zealand in more than 160 sites.
The teacher pointed out that, "even though we may have the antibiotics with us, we cannot administer that until the parents give us permission".
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