”The use of the iPLATO messaging platform as an additional means of communication between provider services and patients has proved to be very effective in delivering significantly reduced DNA rates. It has also emerged as an invaluable resource during the postal strike. Due to these results we will be expanding the project to ensure that maximum benefit can be achieved.” Elinor Taylor, Islington Provider Services in NHS Islington
”As far as health promotion goes Patient Care Messaging is fantastic, we have used manual messaging to support Smoking, Chlamydia, MMR, Flu Jab and to record Ethnicity data. Our last flu campaign targeted 1300 individuals for which we had 559 mobile numbers. We text these 559 patients in conjunction with an invitation letter to invite them to Flu Jab clinics, we jabbed 329 people that Saturday.” Dave Sellers, Practice Manager, The Park Medical Centre in NHS Hammersmith and Fulham
“The iPLATO system has been a huge help, it has made it a lot easier to target parents asking them to call the surgery to book an appointment for their child’s vaccination”. He added, “We know mobile phones are used by a lot of our patients, so text messaging is an effective way to communicate with them.” Nicholas Christou, Practice Manager at The Hambleden Clinic
“We chose to partner with iPLATO because the technology has proven to be a quick and successful method to engage with patients. We are very committed to helping increase the uptake of childhood immunisation, and pleased to offer this additional support to our surgeries, to expand and accelerate their efforts.” Maxine Grimes, Primary Care Information Officer at Southwark PCT
“Getting hold of young adults for sexual health checkups is often difficult to do. The system makes it a lot easier. We decided to use texts messaging, because texting is very popular amongst young adults. The use of text messaging in this area is a really innovative idea - it’s immediate, convenient and non-intrusive.” Grace Kamel, Administration Co-ordinator at the Hampstead Group Practice in Camden PCT
“The iPLATO texting has been an excellent service to our patients; it helps very much with our non attendees, which then gives us the opportunity to offer more appointments. We also use the service for other clinics and recalls such as diabetic, blood pressure, flu clinics. We most certainly will be using this service for the foreseeable future”. Maxine Khol, Practice Manager at Wapping Group Practice
“iPLATO offers an easy, inexpensive way of reminding women about their breast screening appointments”. She also added, “Text messaging could provide a key piece of the puzzle in our quest to improve screening coverage among hard to reach women.” Kay Eilbert, Senior Public Health Strategist at Tower Hamlets PCT
“Mobile patient services have proven that they are cost effective and scalable and are, therefore, the way forward in Wirral. We have a diverse population of patients registered with GPs and many already use mobiles to run their daily lives.” She continues, “NHS Wirral chose iPLATO for its long experience in UK primary care. This system of messaging is functional and secure. It improves service without adding extra work for healthcare staff and links with existing systems used by GPs to book appointments and clinics.” Barbara Dunton, Deputy Head of Bebington and West Wirral Locality, NHS Wirral
“I absolutely love having the system in the surgery and it has saved so much time. The Appointment reminders are very successful and I have also been able to send SMS messages notifying patients of extended hours over the holiday periods and a surgery open day.” Anna Commander of the Leasowe Surgery in Twickenham Drive in NHS Wirral
“The system is very useful for reminding patients about their appointments, especially as many patients forget about their appointments due to long lead times and misplace their original appointment letters. Reminding them the week before and also two days before their appointment is a great way of ensuring that they attend and gives them ample time to cancel it. The reporting feature on the system is also a very useful tool for identifying mobile numbers that are incorrect so that patient information can be updated.” Dr. Nirmin Patel, Interim Service Manager, North London Community Dermatology Service
“Since sending out the message it has eased pressure off our surgery. Patients are calling in and getting advice about Swine Flu instead of coming into the surgery in person. It’s important to contact patients by all means possible when it comes to a pandemic and we are very happy to have iPLATO Patient Care Messaging to help us do that. Since so many of our patients have mobiles, text messaging is the best way to contact them quickly.” Sandra Anderson, Senior Administrator of the Rosslyn Hill Practice in NHS Camden
“Using the text messaging service to reach 8,500 patients led to an immediate decrease in the volume of calls concerning swine flu and an increase the hits on our website where we provide Q&A for the patient. We know people are very concerned about Swine Flu and we want them to know what to do if they think they are infected. Many of our patients have mobile phones and text is a great way to send out a message instantly.” Jeff Mitchell, IT Manager of the James Wigg Practice in NHS Camden
“We are delighted with the text service. It has definitely reduced our DNAs (did not attend) by a substantial amount. Patients often comment on how helpful it is that they are reminded of their appointments by text. We would definitely recommend this service.” Peppy Begueria, Deputy Practice Manager of Prince of Wales Group Practice in NHS Camden
“Patient Care Messaging is the way forward in Camden. We have an ethnically and socially diverse population and many of them use mobile phones. I believe that text message reminders for patient’s appointments are the perfect first step towards building a ‘mobile relationship’. We aim to reduce missed appointments and look forward to using this service to support population wide health promotion initiatives”. Kevin Hunter, Clinical Standards & Governance Manager at NHS Camden
“This way of reaching out to smokers to help them quit is not only effective but very fast, because of this, text messaging is an essential component in the promotion of stop smoking services.” Tim Roberts Stop-Smoking Manager, NHS Hammersmith and Fulham
“We are excited to be offering this service to our patients. Anything that can help bridge the gap between the healthcare provider and patient we see as a positive. Using this system to request information from patients and as a way to invite patients to healthcare services is proving to be very helpful”. Julie Richardson, Head of GP Support & Delivery at Greenwich PCT
“We decided to use iPLATO text messaging solution because it has proven to be a successful means to support smoking initiatives in other surgeries. We are committed to using every way possible to help our population to quit smoking and this innovative service does that. We have also found that this service has the potential of saving time and administration costs.” Sue Roberts, Information Governance Manager, Southmead and Henbury Family Practice, NHS Bristol
Anthony Linklater, Epilepsy Specialist Nurse at the National Hospital said, “After a long period of preparation we are excited to be launching this service which we believe will be of great benefit to our patients. We have developed a holistic medication support package using both mobile phone technology and the internet which will support people to manage their medications better. If the service is positively evaluated, we are hopeful that it will grow in scope and sophistication over the next few years.” Also, Professor John Duncan, Professor of Neurology said, “Most individuals with epilepsy have to take medication regularly in order to achieve the best possible control of their seizures but remembering to take medication can be problematic for some. Taking medication accurately can become quite complicated when it is adjusted as this is usually done in gradual steps over a period of time. We hope that the additional support provided by this service will help some people to manage their medication more effectively which could help to improve the control of their epilepsy.”
‘’Having the Patient Care Messaging capability within over 80% of our GP surgeries has enabled effective support of a range of PCT initiatives, including the accurate recording of Smoking Status on a Trust-wide basis and the subsequent improvement in referral to Smoking Cessation support and advice. Cost savings possible with this approach have also proven to be compelling, when compared to the cost of previous methods employed for similar ends.” Miles Freeman - Associate Director of Commissioning (Primary Care), Hammersmith & Fulham PCT
‘’The use of Patient Care Messaging for BMI Data collection in Hammersmith & Fulham PCT has proven to be an excellent way of efficiently recording vital height and weight measurements from patients, in order to calculate each patient’s BMI and support the identification, assessment and management of overweight and obese patients - a key target in the national fight to reduce the co-morbidities associated with an increasing BMI.” Jan Adamson - Primary Care Development Manager, Hammersmith & Fulham PCT
“Text messaging has a huge role to play in the way surgeries communicate with their patients, the immediacy and convenience of this medium has been illustrated by the positive results experienced by many of our surgeries. Islington PCT is dedicated to using innovative technologies to enhance patient services while giving patient greater choice in the way in which they receive health information; we see text messaging as one of the technologies.” David Thomas - Head of Information, Islington PCT
“We are excited about the opportunity to improve communication with our patients through innovative technology. Doctors need to collect information on all their patients’ smoking status every 15 months; but there are plenty of people who won’t see their GP that often. This new system makes it quick and convenient for both doctors and patients, and will hopefully increase the number of people we can offer stop smoking support to.” Tom Stevenson - Spokesperson for the PCT, Hammersmith & Fulham PCT
“We chose to partner with iPLATO because the technology has proven to be successful. We are very committed to helping smokers quit, and pleased to offer this additional support to our surgeries to expand and accelerate their efforts.” Sima Chaudhury - Health Improvement Practitioner, Tobacco Control, City and Hackney tPCT
“The iPLATO system has been a huge help, it has made it a lot easier to target parents asking them to call the surgery to book an appointment for their child’s vaccination”. He added, “We know mobile phones are used by a lot of our patients, so text messaging is an effective way to communicate with them.” Nicholas Christou - Practice Manager at The Hambleden Clinic, Southwark PCT
‘’Text messaging has been a massive help, enabling us to gather a patient’s weight quickly in order to calculate their BMI. Of course we weigh people at the surgery, but this method allows us to quickly and very cost effectively update the records of people who may not need our services very often. With mobile being the communication method of choice for our very varied patient base and with obesity levels being where they are, we feel that this is a perfect complement to our current service ”. Mandy Norton - Practice Manager at The Bush Doctors, Hammersmith & Fulham PCT
“We will be using the text messaging system for breast screening appointment reminders in the coming weeks. We are looking forward to the opportunity of providing an innovative service that aims to increase the effectiveness of the breast screening programme.” Virginia Patania - Practice Manager at the Jubilee Place Practice, Towers Hamlets PCT
“We think our population is ready for this automated voice service as it is a natural extension of the texting service we already offer to people who have their mobile telephone number recorded on the system here at the surgery. In this project we seek to streamline tedious but necessary tasks, such as continuously updating patient records, to free up staff to work with our patient. We know that this method will be more efficient than most other data collection methods so what we are really looking at is establishing patient acceptance and satisfaction”. Dr Susan McGoldrick - GP at the Bush Doctors, Hammersmith & Fulham PCT
“We have an ethnically and socially very diverse population in Lewisham. A vast majority of patients already use their mobile phone to run their daily lives and our experience of using this system from both the staff and patients’ perspective has been very positive.” Marie Searle - Practice Manager at Honor Oak Practice, Lewisham PCT
“We were able to put together a list of children that were overdue for their specific jab and whose parents had not responded to letters sent out previously. Using the iPLATO system, we sent a targeted text message to these parents asking, them to call the surgery to book an appointment for their child’s missed vaccination. The result of this text campaign was overwhelmingly positive, with more than half of the parents phoning the surgery in response to the text alert, to schedule a new appointment” Stuart Hall - Practice IT Manager from the Vale Medical Centre, Lewisham PCT
“Mobile phones are used by a lot of our patients and so text messaging is an effective way to communicate with them. As a doctor with a special interest in CHD, I see this service as a great tool for the support of efficient health promotion campaigns. This service has the potential to increase significantly the number of patients attending clinics as well as saving on surgery administration costs.” Dr. J. John - GP at the King Edwards Medical Centre, Barking and Dagenham PCT
“Recent research from the Imperial College in London suggests that the NHS in England could save between £240 - £370 million per year simply by reminding patients about their appointments via text. We hope to show how this theory can be delivered in practice. iPLATO Patient Care Messaging enables us to send appointment reminders and notify patients about upcoming clinics. We have found the accredited integration between Patient Care Messaging and our GP system from EMIS vital for delivering these results” Dr Jackie Masterton - Senior Partner at Dr Masterton and Partners Surgery, Lambeth PCT
“Our Patient Text Message Appointment Reminder Pilot has been running since early April, covering two specialties with typically high DNA rates (20% and 23% respectively). Our latest figures show that, of the patients who have received text message reminders, only 2.7% went on to miss their appointments, which is a dramatic improvement.” Yasmin Anwar - Service Improvement Manager at Dental and Patient Services, Barts and The London NHS Trust
“Mobile patient services are the way forward in Lewisham. We have an ethnically and socially very diverse population. A vast majority already uses the mobile to run their daily lives. I believe that text messaging to remind them about their appointments is a perfect first step towards building a ‘mobile relationship’ with them. In the next 12 months we aim to reduce missed appointments by 25% from where we are today and get as many patients as possible onto the system as quickly as possible.” Simon Gosney - Minor Illness Service Improvement Facilitator at Lewisham PCT
“The high attendance and keen interest from practices at the event clearly indicate the rapidly growing appeal of Patient Care Messaging as a key channel of patient communication by surgeries. I was pleased to share my experiences from the last couple of months with my peers” Mark Cronin - Information and Technology Manager from the Chrisp Street Practice, Tower Hamlets PCT
“We are very keen to use Patient Care Messaging features beyond automatic appointment reminders. The ability to use text messaging to call in groups of patients for smoking cessation, diabetes or flu-jab clinics really appeals to us as it will help us providing better care to our patients with long-term conditions. GPs and their staff are currently spending a great deal of time and resources on calling in patients for the QoF reviews. This system will go a long way to help reduce the burden on staff and improve the QoF points that the practice gains. This in turn will increase income to the practice.” Dr Paul Husselbee - Partner at Highlands Surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, South East Essex PCT
“We have been using iPLATO’s Patient Care Messaging for automatic appointment reminders since March 2005.In this case we used the system’s group mailing feature and the result was remarkable from the surgery’s and our patients’ perspective. The mobile channel offers unparalleled speed in contacting people wherever they may be with a clear and actionable message. Many patients answered the flu-jab reminder with their mobile proving the medium is a two way interaction tool rather than just one-way broadcasting. With other means of communication - letter or calling - this campaign method does not only compare well on speed, communication quality and response rate, it is also cheaper to produce and manage.” Adrian James - Morse -Practice IT manager at Dr Masterton & Partners practice, Lambeth PCT