Digital support at every stage of the pathway
The NHS Long Term Plan, published in 2019, talked of delivering ‘a new service model for the 21st century’ with a chapter specifically focusing on how to get digitally enabled care mainstream across the NHS, which was prioritised to support service redesign to address more sustainable methods of care delivery due to growing demand, particularly on secondary care services. The demand for these serivces, and associated backlogs and waitlists was further exacerbated over the last few years during the COVID-19 pandemic, making a need for digital support more prevalent. The delivery plan for tackling the backlog in elective care further supports the need for digital tools to support service delivery and elective recovery, as outline below.
Patients Know Best, a patient engagement platform delivered via a PHR, has a range of tools that can support different workflows and strategies to engage with patients at different stages of their pathway more effectively, to maximise resources and free up capacity to increase capacity to allow those on a waitlist to be seen more quickly, and supported better whilst waiting.
NHS providers can use the platform to share key information with patients both on an initial referral, whilst they wait for assessment/treatment and to manage ongoing routine care to support waiting well and preparation. In addition, NHS providers can collect data from patients to help inform the appropriate pathways to place patients on, and to empower patients to take greater ownership of management and monitoring of their conditions. This record can be accessed by patients and professionals anywhere, and at any time allowing for digital interactions to occur earlier on and at key points in a patient journey, making every contact count.
Whilst waiting
Whilst patients wait for their initial assessments/consultation, information can be shared with them to help support them with waiting well enabling better management of their health, as much as possible, and keep them informed of their of their place on a wait list.
Information can also be collected from patients to ensure providers have an accurate view of their waitlist status, and condition progression needed for triage.
Tools to support waiting well and wait list validation:
Preparation + prehabilitation + pre-assessment
Before a patients first appointment/assessment or treatment, information can be shared with them to prepare them for this interaction, or for providers to collect data to ensure their treatment and recovery is as well supported as possible.
Discharge + ongoing routine care
Once a patient is ready to be discharged or is on a routine care pathway, digital tools can be utilised to support patients with a smoother discharge, or move patients to a PIFU/personalised stratified follow-up. This can remove unnecessary interactions and enable patients more empowerment for self-management and self-monitoring.
Examples of elective recovery programmes supported by PKB
Access resources and learnings from those already implementing programmes with PKB. Contact your Account Manager if you are a customer wanting to find out more, or our business team if you are not yet a customer but want to learn how you could support programmes using PKB.
- Hull University Teaching Hospitals - HUTH are utilising PKB to capture data from patients ahead of their appointment, which are transmitted to a dashboard and patients are triaged to determine how much pre-surgery/consultation support is needed, freeing up capacity from those who would have otherwise had an interaction which was not required. This is being implemented across their surgical pathways.
- Hywel Dda University Health Board - HDUHB have implemented a pre-habilitation programme for those awaiting orthopaedic surgery. Patients are given a personalised care plan 8 weeks ahead of their surgery, with week-by-week guidance to prepare for their procedure and the rehabilitation afterwards. The health board is are now looking to spread this to support more individuals on the waiting list, and across more therapeutic areas.
- PIFU - many examples of organisations using PKB in PIFU pathways can be found on our dedicated PIFU site.
