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London, 19 August, 2010 - Eligible patients in NHS Tower Hamlets will soon be benefiting from receiving SMS invitations for cervical screening from their GP surgeries. Free to receive for the patient, the reminder service is fully funded by the PCT. All GP surgeries will use the secure and NHS approved iPLATO Patient Care Messaging system to streamline this communication.

According to the NHS, 900 women die from cervical cancer in England each year. It is therefore crucial to have a screening as it can help pick up changes in the cells of the cervix which could lead to cancer. Cancer Research UK estimates that up to 4,500 lives can be saved each year in England by having a cervical screening.

Experts agree that it is vital that patients are made aware of cervical screening service. Another challenge is to change attitudes towards smear tests within certain patient demographics and locations. This can be met with effective patient communication which is a key component in the PCT’s strategy to reach the national target.

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About NHS Tower Hamlets

The aim is to improve the health of local people living in Tower Hamlets in east London. The PCT wants to reduce inequalities in health and modernise services for local people. This can be achieved through assessing the health needs of our communities, commissioning services from hospital trusts and other local organisations, and by providing a range of services ourselves.Bottom of Form

London, August 9^th, 2010 - Sandwell Primary Care Trust will soon introduce text messaging as an innovative and practical means of reminding parents of children under the age 5 to attend immunisation clinics. Using the NHS approved iPLATO Patient Care Messaging system combined with immunisation records on their GP system, the GP surgeries will send SMS reminders asking parents to book an appointment for their child’s immunisation jabs.

Having children immunised is the most effective way to protect them from serious diseases such as Pneumococcal, Meningitis C, Measles, Mumps and Rubella. As a parent, you may not like seeing your baby or child being given an injection. However, vaccination is an important step in protecting your child against a range of serious and potentially fatal diseases. Vaccinations are quick, safe and extremely effective. Once your child has been vaccinated against a disease, their body can fight that disease more effectively if they come into contact with it. If a child is not vaccinated, they will be at increased risk of catching the illness.

Based on iPLATO experiences in other parts of the country this new service will increase immunisation uptake which is seen as key to avoid hospitalisation due to children catching any of the serious diseases they should immunised against. As the mobile channel is inexpensive and convenient it will also improve patient satisfaction and reduce communication costs. 

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About Sandwell Primary Care TrustTop of Form

Sandwell Primary Care Trust is at the heart of the local NHS in Sandwell. It was formed in October 2006 following the merger of three Primary Care Trusts: Oldbury & Smethwick, Rowley Regis & Tipton and Wednesbury & West Bromwich Primary Care Trusts.

It serves a local registered population of approximately 320,000 and enables people in Sandwell to access healthcare, treatment and advice, health promotion advice and guidance and support for carers.

London, August 4th 2010. iPLATO Healthcare announced today that the company has been awarded a framework agreement for Assistive Technologies which includes Telecare, Telehealth and Telecoaching products and services. This is good news for NHS organisations and Local Authorities across the country that will now be able to purchase products and services from an online catalogue under pre-agreed terms and conditions, managed by Buying Solutions.

Already working with over 700 healthcare providers in more than 50 Primary Care Trusts and Health Boards, iPLATO’s mHealth solutions have proven to transform patient services and reduce health inequalities across populations. The company’s evidence based offerings include wellness, diagnosis, behavioural change and long term condition management solutions. This listing means that a specialised mHealth offering is represented in procurement lists at national level for the first time.

“We are delighted that we have been awarded a place on the national framework agreement” says Tobias Alpsten, Managing Director at iPLATO. “mHealth is a sub-set of Assistive Technologies that runs across telehealthcare and telecoaching. As a result, our offering complements rather than competes with traditional Assistive Technology propositions. We are looking forward to working with other suppliers on the framework agreement to put together holistic, community-wide, remote care solutions. Fundamentally, we think patients and tax payers are the real winners here because this award will help our NHS and Local Authority partners launch patient centric mHealth services faster by avoiding lengthy procurement processes. In times like these, it is refreshing to know that iPLATO’s solutions deliver immediate bottom-line improvements as well as health and care outcomes. We deliver service transformation - not simply technology. Our approach includes business process redesign, technology development and change management.”

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About Buying Solutions
Buying Solutions is the national procurement partner for all UK public services and is part of the Efficiency and Reform Group within the Cabinet Office.Its role is to deliver best value for customers in central government and the wider public sector through the efficient procurement and supply of essential goods and services.

Buying Solutions saves its customers time, money and effort by providing access to trusted, compliant, and sustainable procurement solutions, which deliver measurable savings, value for money and peace of mind.

Contact:
Buying Solutions Press Office
Tel: 0345 410 2222
Email: [2] pressoffice@buyingsolutions.gsi.gov.uk  
Web: [3] www.buyingsolutions.gov.uk

IPLATO careSUPPORT

iPLATO careSUPPORT underpins our healthcare provider partners long term condition management and behavioural change programmes. It consists of a comprehensive range of modules to support patient self care.

A selection of iPLATO careSUPPORT modules:

• Medication Support - to improve patient adherence to medication.
• Carer Support - to make life easier for carers.
• Education Support - to increase motivation for treatment.
• Patient Diary - to enable self monitoring, reporting and sharing.
• Text Consultation - to allow auditable doctor-patient interaction.

Long term condition management and behavioural change is an area of rapid growth for iPLATO and mHealth. Our target conditions are:

• Epilepsy
• HIV
• Diabetes
• Hypertension
• Asthma
• Depression
• Smoking Cessation
• Weight Loss
• Physical Inactivity

We welcome innovative clinicians and academic institutions to get in touch to work with us to trial new concepts and develop new evidence.

iPLATO careSUPPORT underpins our healthcare provider partners long term condition management and behavioural change programmes. It consists of a comprehensive range of modules that support patient self care.

A selection of iPLATO careSUPPORT modules:

• Medication Support - to improve patient adherence to medication.
• Carer Support - to make life easier for carers.
• Education Support - to increase motivation for treatment.
• Patient Diary - to enable self monitoring, reporting and sharing.
• Text Consultation - to allow auditable doctor-patient interaction.

iPLATO supports the following programmes:

• Epilepsy
• HIV
• Diabetes
• Hypertension
• Asthma
• Depression
• Smoking Cessation
• Weight Loss
• Physical Inactivity

We welcome innovative clinicians and academic institutions to get in touch to work with us to trial new concepts and develop new evidence.

E-mail us now on [4] info@iplato.net if you are considering providing additional support for your patients with long term conditions.

iPLATO’s world leading mHealth product offering combines the fundamental healthcare requirement for security and scalability with a need for rapid innovation and realisation of benefits and outcomes. These products are available for white labelling.

London, July 6th, 2010 - iPLATO Healthcare, the leader in mHealth, announced today that two practices at the Dunbar Medical Centre in east Lothian recently became the first GP Surgeries in Scotland to launch iPLATO Patient Care Messaging. In response to patient preferences for mobile communication in primary care the system is expected to reduce waiting times for GP appointments and enable GP-led, personalised and timely public health promotion.

According to Edinburgh Evening News last year around 124,000 people missed a hospital or GP appointment across NHS Lothian at a cost of nearly £17 million. Ultimately funded by NHS Lothian this initiative seeks to improve access to primary care services as well as drive efficiencies and reduce costs.

In a statement from the two GP surgeries, the partners say “We are pleased to have the opportunity to pilot this service on behalf of East Lothian CHP (Community Health Partnership), to see if we can improve communication between practice and patients. It should make it easier to remind our patients when check-ups are due, and so lead to improved care for long-term conditions which need regular review. Receiving reminders is free of charge to the patient. We encourage all our patients to hand in their mobile phone number to us so that they can benefit from this service.”

“Launching in Lothian with two of the practices at the Dunbar Medical Centre is a big, long term, opportunity for us but also for patients, healthcare professionals and payers in Scotland,” says Tobias Alpsten, Managing Director at iPLATO. “Across a patient population comparable to Scotland’s, iPLATO Patient Care Messaging freed up more than 100,000 GP appointments last year through SMS cancellations alone. Based on our experiences elsewhere, iPLATO Patient Care Messaging should be able to save NHS Scotland more than 200,000 GP appointments per year if deployed nationally. The smart public health promotion enabled by iPLATO  Patient Care Messaging further adds to its appeal.”

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Notes for Editor:

About Dunbar Medical Centre
The Dunbar Medical Centre is made of three practices in NHS Lothian. Two of the surgeries, Dr Cassells, Brewster & Mee Surgery and Dr Badger, Black & McPhail Surgery have recently started to use iPLATO Patient Care Messaging.

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London, June 8th 2010 - iPLATO Healthcare, the leader in mHealth, announced today that a smart health promotion campaign delivered in partnership with 24 GP surgeries using iPLATO Patient Care Messaging generated 1,850 qualified referrals to NHS Health Checks in just four weeks. Supported by the iPLATO team the average participating surgery spent less than 1 hour on delivering this campaign which resulted in 1 qualified referral per minute of surgery effort.

Funded and overseen by Heart of Birmingham Teaching Primary Care Trust, the campaign achieved 44% response rate from target patients underlining the fundamental appeal of vascular checks for patients aged between 40 and 74 as well as the suitability of text messaging as the primary tool for cost effective and streamlined engagement with large numbers of patients.

NHS Health Checks aim to reduce risks from developing vascular disease and to provide early detection in order to significantly reduce mortality rates. The national programme requires PCTs around England to implement processes and systems to screen patients aged between 40 and 74 every three years. The participating surgeries in Heart of Birmingham Teaching Primary Care Trust achieved their challenging NHS Health Checks target for 2009/2010 through the help of this innovative technology.

Tobias Alpsten, Managing Director of iPLATO Healthcare said: “We are excited about working in partnership with Heart of Birmingham Teaching Primary Care Trust and the GP surgeries to develop innovative ways to communicate with patients. Many PCTs find patient engagement and enrolment for Health Checks and other screening services challenging. Through iPLATO Patient Care Messaging, which enables smart health promotion using SMS, IVR and call centre, we can help optimise the end-to-end process from data collection/cleansing all the way to enrolment and retention.”

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[6] Prague, 26 April 2010 - Lexum European Eye Clinic, a network of private ophthalmology clinics in the Czech Republic, announced today that its patients in Prague are benefiting from receiving appointment reminders via text message. Launched in March the new mobile health service is already proving popular with patients who appreciate the convenience and speed of interacting with their eye doctor via their mobile phone.

Lexum European Eye Clinic is the first user of iPLATO Patient Care Messaging in the Czech Republic. As a leading network of private ophthalmology clinics the primary objective with the new mobile service is to enhance the patient experience and to streamline patient interaction before and after operation. iPLATO Patient Care Messaging, the world’s leading platform for mobile health promotion already used by more than 700 healthcare organisations, was provided in partnership with T-Mobile.

“We are pleased with the reception of our new service says” Dr. Peter Ivančák PhD., CEO of Lexum. “It is not every day that we in healthcare IT get to launch services that are so tangible and obviously beneficial to the patient. With 77% of our patients’ mobile phone numbers recorded on our patient administration system we are already reaching most of our patients via the mobile channel. As a result of the early success at the Lexum Clinic in Prague, we aim to expand the iPLATO service across our clinics in the Czech Republic. Within our commitment to offering a top quality experience to our patients we are looking forward to work with iPLATO to lead the development of mobile health services in Central and Eastern Europe.”

“Mobile penetration in the Czech Republic surpassed 130% already in 2008″, says Jiří Orlík, iPLATO’s Czech Head of Technology. As the mobile telecommunications hub of Central and Eastern Europe it was always a question of time before this market got into mHealth. We are delighted to work with Lexum European Eye Clinic and T-Mobile to launch the first generation mobile health services in the Czech Republic. We are looking forward work with our partners across the world to develop many more generations of mHealth services to support patients in achieving longer, healthier lives.”

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Notes for Editors:

About Lexum ([7] www.lexum.cz)

Lexum European Eye Clinic network is the biggest private ophalmological health care institution in the Czech Republic. The clinic was founded in 1993 by group of physicians practicing at IInd Eye clinic, General Teaching Hospital and Ist Medical School, Charles University in Prague.

Lexum specializes mainly in all types of refractory accommodation defects, including myopia, hypermetropia, and astigmatism, additionally cataract surgery and retinal and corneal surgery. The clinic successfully performed more than 95 000 ophthalmologic surgeries yet.

The clinic is equipped by the most up to date techniques available, medical team is formed out of top internationally recognized professionals in the field of ophthalmology.

The clinic is also functioning as a well established teaching center regularly visited by specialists from abroad. Lexum clinic medical team puts emphasis on patient information and co operation. Lexum clinics reside in Prague, Brno, Ostrava and Czech Budejovice.

Beginning January 2009, following merge with Intermedica, the largest eye clinic network in Poland, Lexum extended its activities also to Poznan, Krakow and Szczecin.

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London, March 2^nd 2010, iPLATO Healthcare, the leader in mobile health today announced the launch of mSite - a new module of iPLATO Patient Care Messaging. mSite, provided free of charge to licensed GP surgeries, will enable each surgery to create their own mobile internet site to inform patients about opening hours, contacts details, access maps and out of hours services.

NHS Hammersmith and Fulham, an early adopter of mobile services, will use mSite to promote health and increase awareness of local services.  Another goal is to improve access to primary care services and help patients’ access out-of-hours services to avoid unnecessary A&E admissions. Surgeries can promote mSite by adding a link to the surgery site in each appointment reminder message. If the patient follows the link, they will get access to the surgery site with links to useful local information about services and promotion of ‘No Smoking Day’ on March 10^th 2010.

Miles Freeman, Director of Commissioning at NHS Hammersmith and Fulham said “As a pioneering PCT, we’re excited about being the first to offer our patients this new option to access local health information via their mobile. We already utilise a range of channels to communicate with our patients and with mobile phone numbers recorded at our GP surgeries at over 50%, adding a mobile option seems an obvious choice. We are looking at this initiative as a long term channel development opportunity - not a quick fix.  We are aware that not all of our population today use the type of phones required to access this service, but as smartphone usage increases, so will the demand to use them to access health information”.

“According to the Mobile Data Association, an average of 17 million people per month in the UK used the mobile internet in 2008″, says Tobias Alpsten Managing Director at iPLATO Healthcare. “Since then, the iPhone has popularised the concept of using the mobile to access applications and information. The surge in Smartphones coming to market over the next year will present our PCTs and GPs with the opportunity to engage with large numbers of their patients using this channel.”

iPLATO mSite is designed to work on all mobile internet enabled phones in the UK. Even though mobile internet enabled, this service may not work for some users because of their data settings. Please contact your mobile operator if you experience access problems. This is not a premium rate service. Unless included in your mobile package, this service may incur mobile data charges from your network operator. NHS Hammersmith and Fulham are not able to reimburse patient cost for accessing mSite.  

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Notes for Editors:

About NHS Hammersmith and Fulham

NHS Hammersmith and Fulham is the NHS organisation responsible for providing and commissioning healthcare for people living and working in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.  Our aim is to improve the health of local residents by providing access to high quality health services and encouraging people to make healthy lifestyle choices (for example stopping smoking, eating a healthy diet and taking regular exercise).