Physiotherapists at National Stroke Association of Malaysia (NASAM) train and collaborate over Microsoft Teams amid Malaysia’s Movement Control Order

MALAYSIA, 5 August 2020 – The National Stroke Association of Malaysia (NASAM), a non-profit organization serving stroke survivors and their families, faced an abrupt turn of events during the nation’s border closure – the immediate shutdown of all nine of its centers country-wide.

Through a frantic push to transit all communications and internal processes online, NASAM swiftly deployed Microsoft Teams across all centers – Petaling Jaya, Ampang, Ipoh, Johor Bahru, Kota Kinabalu, Kuantan, Melaka, Penang and Kulim – within half a day. This ensured therapists could continue planning care for their stroke patients while staying updated and organized from their homes.

Getting organized with Microsoft Teams

For Head of Rehabilitation, Tracy Chan, keeping in touch with her 30 therapists across the centers was no easy feat, given the number of tasks that had to be managed remotely. This ranged from regular meetings with specific groups of therapists, to conducting daily Continued Medical Education (CME) sessions – a series of two-hour webinars and journal reviews with the centers held daily.

All interactions transitioned to video calls on Microsoft Teams, where Tracy was able to effectively resume daily communications with her therapists. Across the board, therapists promptly familiarized themselves with integrative Microsoft Teams functions such as video conferencing, sharing documents and setting up channels.

These intuitive tools created a conducive environment for conducting regular meetings and training that kept therapists abreast of the latest healthcare knowledge and services.

Stepping up preparations for reopening

As Malaysia’s Movement Control Order (MCO) eased and organizations were set to reopen, meetings and preparations at NASAM ramped up further.

While essential announcements and updates by the Ministry of Health and the NASAM CEO were cascaded via WhatsApp and email, Tracy concurrently initiated virtual meetings on Microsoft Teams, where she reinforced all announcements and measures across centers. These measures included revised therapy hall arrangements, setting up screening areas and crowd control for stroke patients and caregivers to practice safe distancing as they reopened.

On meetings with individual centers, Tracy would host quizzes and roleplay with her therapists to cement their understanding of these measures. This included situations where they were required to provide operational updates to government authorities during center spot checks.

Tracy said, “Microsoft Teams has been very useful and dependable for us – it proved to be very stable and user-friendly while we were working from home. We are thankful that we could rely on it early into the MCO, especially as we were grappling with so many changes.”

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