I’m a clinician using OneConsultation, how can I make sure I have a good video call?

What you’ll need:

A stable internet connection

• We recommend using a wired ethernet connection to the internet wherever possible.
• Where wired connection is unavailable, try to ensure that you are on a good wifi connection.
• If you are using your home wifi, make sure that nobody else in the house is streaming games or TV, as this will use up the wifi bandwidth and cause delays to your video/sound.
• If you find you are having a poor quality call on your home wifi connection, try moving closer to the router, as this may improve the call.
• If wifi is not available, a minimum of 4G is required. In some areas, a 4G connection may provide a better experience than public wifi.(We estimate that a 30 minute consultation would use approximately 126mb of data.)
• If you are working from home and you usually use VPN, we recommend turning this off for using OneConsultation. VPNs can cause poor quality calls because the video traffic has further to travel. If your internet connection is poor, or drops out, you will see and hear an impact on your video call. The same advice above on internet connectivity can be given to patients who are experiencing issues with video calling. Ofcom and the UK goverment recommend that a ‘decent’ broadband speed for typical home usage is one capable of delivering a download speed of at least 10 Mbps and an upload speed of at least 1 Mbps. You can find more information on this in the House of Commons library and advice on your rights around broadband on Ofcom’s website.

An internet-connected device with speakers, microphone and camera

• We recommend using a headset to increase clarity of audio and reduce any echo.
• If your device doesn’t have a camera or microphone built-in, make sure you’ve followed the manufacturer’s guidelines for setting up any microphones or webcams to use with your device.

A supported browser

• OneConsultation is not supported for use on Internet Explorer. Check out our full list of compatible browsers for further details.
• If you’re not sure whether your device and browser combination will work with OneConsultation, you can use this testing tool to find out.

What your patient will need

• You can find our patient guidance for successful video calling here. Feel free to include this guidance on any patient communications prior to your consultations.
• If your patient is having issues with OneConsultation, we have some basic troubleshooting guidance.

Are you a Microsoft Teams user?

If you’re using OneConsultation with Microsoft Teams, there are some initial setup steps to complete before you use OneConsultation for the first time. You can find these here.

Other Top Tips

• The best way to assess whether your internet connection is good enough to join a virtual consultation is to make a test call to testcall@onecvideo.net.
• Before you use OneConsultation with patients, perform a test consultation with a colleague, with one person using their O365 credentials and one person using a personal device, acting as a public user. This allows O365 users to experience the online consultation process before a live appointment.
• If you are a Microsoft Teams user, you can blur your background, which can reduce distractions on the call.
• As you may be having confidential discussions, try to make sure that you are in a secure and private location to take part in your virtual consultation.
• Try to make sure that you are in a quiet, well-lit location (ideally not directly in front of a window) so that your patient can see and hear you clearly.
• If you are a Microsoft Teams or Skype for Business user, make sure your version of Skype/Teams is up to date.
• If you are a Microsoft Teams user, always join the consultation from the appointment card in the admin portal. This will ensure that you enter the correct consultation, and don’t join a previous consultation in error.
• If you are experiencing issues using OneConsultation, please see our guidance for some basic troubleshooting.

Video calling is being used now more than ever. A successful video call relies on stable internet connectivity, correct hardware setup and browser compatibility; unfortunately sometimes there will be occasions where a video call has bad picture/sound quality, or is disconnected. If your patient is having issues with their internet connectivity or device, there are limited ways to help them join and complete a video consultation. In some cases you may find that you need to fall back to a mobile phone call to complete your discussions.