TRAINING & EDUCATION


Digital technology can enable patient data to be captured, allowing practices to tailor health information, alerts and reminders regarding health campaigns such as seasonal flu inoculations and screenings.


With patients securely booking and cancelling appointments remotely on their phone, this also takes the pressure off GP receptionists at some of the busiest times of year, such as the winter flu season.


Improving Medication


Adherence Broad, patient-led improved adherence to prescribed medication could have a significant impact on commissioning from both an outcomes and cost management perspective. Digital solutions and health apps promoting a patient-centric approach can help tackle the widespread issue of poor adherence.


clinician’s views into account and ensuring safety, the focus should always be on delivering what patients want, and letting patients decide what they want to use.


However, we still don’t understand why this isn’t happening; perhaps fear and a lack of trust plays a role in the reticence to embrace such technologies? There is definitely still an old-fashioned attitude and NHS tradition of ‘we know what is best for you’.


A Patient-Centric Approach Many GPs complain about their increased workload related to care planning, however digital systems exist with capabilities that enable patients to manage their own health which are accompanied by robust research and evidence of best-practice.


Online patient services provide patients with a facility to monitor their weight, blood pressure, amongst others, and take responsibility for their own care for long-term conditions such as diabetes.


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Currently, wasted medication costs the NHS a staggering £300 million each year with up to 50% of people not taking their medication correctly. In the EU alone nearly 200,000 deaths occur per year because of missed doses of medication.


Currently, there are five million patients in the UK that take four or more medications, and around 200,000 patients in the UK who require further support to take their medication correctly, above and beyond existing adherence packaging systems. Behind these startling facts lie thousands of family tragedies.


Innovative apps enable patients to set up reminders for their medicines. These tools are designed to support patient self-care and require no GP practice intervention.


If a fraction of the cost to better manage medication was invested in new innovative technology and intervention services, the NHS could save millions of pounds and potentially lives every year.


Reducing pressures on A&E Pulse Magazine recently released new research which revealed the average waiting time for a routine GP appointment is now 13 days, up three on 2015, and alarmingly, doctors have warned this figure could rise again to 17 days by next year. A rise in demand, retiring staff and a shortage of GPs have been blamed for the increase.


“The digital revolution, and in particular


mobile technology, has transformed the way


we all live our lives, but what are the barriers to NHS adoption of such services.”


And, if a poor patient experience with potential medical effects was not enough, the tax payer too suffers from this as a national average of one in ten patients that do not get acceptable access to primary care attend urgent care services including A&E at a significantly higher cost, according to the NHS Patient Survey.


Transforming access to primary care offers obvious advantages to patients, but it also benefits commissioners and tax payers. As such, there is a push to ensure that the majority of GP appointments are used effectively to help reduce the burden on urgent care services.


As a healthcare community, we need to work collaboratively and appreciate that digital patient-facing technology may well be the answer to help save our NHS.


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