Our approach

We worked with the rheumatology team to understand where we could increase efficiency within existing services. We mapped patient pathways through the service to understand where digital technology could support better outcomes.

We kept our solution low cost, easy to implement by prototyping a remote monitoring service to test with patients and clinical staff on existing patient pathways.

The rheumatology team wanted different PROMs for patients depending on their condition. The first version of the service was based on the  Rheumatoid Arthritis Impact of Disease (RAID) score. We worked with patients to make the questions easy to complete at home. About 100 patients who were ‘stable’ were added patient remote monitoring system. They were sent an initial SMS to explain the service and link to a webpage with more information. We then sent an SMS each month to complete their form.

Over 80% of patients reported their symptoms regularly which is a high participation rate. The clinical team gradually added more patients. There are now around 2,000 patients using remote monitoring.

Since its launch, we’ve continued to test across different conditions, including diabetes and long Covid. This research helped us iterate the service for use as part of patient initiated follow up (PIFU) pathways.

The service is integrated with GOV.UK Notify for quick and easy SMS management. Care coordinators can set up and onboard patients easily and clinical teams can build the questionnaires they need by selecting questions from validated PROMS.

Outcome

The service takes 2 minutes of patients’ time each month which saves hours of time travelling to and from appointments that they don’t need. We’ve found clinicians like to show patients their results chart during consultation to help them discuss why symptoms might have changed over time, resulting in better conversations and better informed decisions.