We’re making some changes to the way we do telemedicine. We’ve been having increasing problems with the Signal app, but Jitsi Meet is working very well, so I would like to prefer Jitsi Meet. What does this mean for you?
If you’re currently a happy Signal user…
If you’ve been using Signal Private Messenger to do telemedicine with us, and you haven’t had any problems, you can stick with it and nothing will change. Please, please don’t forget, though, to never try to contact us using Signal—video, voice, or text—unless you have a scheduled telemedicine appointment. Signal calls go to a special phone which is only monitored when we have appointments. Several patients have forgotten that and sent somewhat urgent messages to us using Signal. Don’t. Not only will we not see them, potentially for days, but it is very difficult to integrate them with our record keeping. It is a big medical liability risk, and if it keeps happening we will have to abandon Signal altogether.
If you’re currently a happy Jitsi Meet user…
Nothing is going to change. You can keep using Jitsi Meet from your webcam-equipped desktop computer, your laptop computer, or your phone or tablet. Life will continue to be good.
If you’re a Signal user who’s had trouble…
…or even if you’d just like to try something different, we should switch to Jitsi Meet. I can text or email a link to you. Proceed just as if you’re new to Oasis telemedicine (see below).
If you’re new to telemedicine at Oasis…
I’d like you to use Jitsi Meet. It seems to be more reliable than Signal, it supports multi-party meetings, and it will run on your computer or your mobile device. It’s also probably more private, in that I own and operate the server on which it runs. You don’t need to create an account or have a phone number. You just follow a link.
Let us know if you want us to send the link by text message or email, and we’ll get it to you before our scheduled appointment.
on a desktop or laptop computer
If your system and applications are completely up-to-date, you should be able to just click the link, tell your system that it’s okay for our site (“meet.risley.net”) to use the microphone and camera, then you should find yourself in a meeting room waiting for me to show up (or, with luck, I’ll already be there). Alas, the world isn’t a perfect place, and if you’re using even slightly older versions of some web browsers, Jitsi Meet won’t work. If you’re having any trouble, just copy and paste the link into the Google Chrome browser—all versions of Chrome from the past few years should work. It’s a free download.
on a phone, tablet, or other mobile device
Just tap the link. It should open a page in your browser that lets you choose to download the Jitsi Meet application if you don’t already have it, or to use it if it’s already installed. You should then be in the room ready for your appointment. That’s it!