Barking & Dagenham Surgeries use iPLATO for health promotion & appointment reminders

Patients in Barking and Dagenham will soon be receiving health promotion information and appointment reminders to their mobiles phones via text message. Barking and Dagenham Primary Care Trust has offered the iPLATO Patient Care Messaging platform to their GP surgeries after evaluating the benefits of using mobile technology as a targeted and highly responsive way of engaging with patients.

Funded centrally by the PCT, the service will be used to help address important public health concerns such as smoking, flu and childhood immunisations and obesity. The system works by integrating with the GPs’ clinical system where patient records are stored. Surgeries can use the clinical information they hold to target specific patients for health promotion campaigns and send groups of patients text message invitations to clinics. To achieve optimal uptake of this free service, surgeries will be encouraging their patients to hand in and update their mobile contact details.

Dr. J. John, GP at the King Edwards Medical Centre, and one of the 13 practices who have already signed up to Patient Care Messaging said, “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.”

Participating surgeries will also benefit from the automated appointment reminder functionality of the text messaging system. Patients will automatically receive personalised text reminders at a set time before their appointment, which they can reply to if they need to cancel. This feature is integral to helping reduce missed appointments while enhancing patient access.

With an estimated 82% of the UK adult population owning a mobile phone, once fully launched, the participating surgeries will be able to reach a significant number of their patients through this scheme.

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Notes for Editors:

About Barking & Dagenham PCT

Barking and Dagenham Primary Care Trust is responsible for improving the health and well-being of local people by ensuring that appropriate services are available in the right place and at the right time. The PCT does this by entering into agreements with health care providers, such as hospitals, to provide a wide range of different health services, ensuring that patients have a choice about where they go for treatment. It also directly provides community-based health services such as health visiting, physiotherapy and district nursing, and is responsible for developing primary care services in conjunction with GPs, dentists, opticians and pharmacists. Barking and Dagenham Primary Care Trust was set up in April 2001 and employs around 560 staff.

Press contact:

Rowan Taylor
Barking and Dagenham
Head of Communications
020 8532 6220
rowan.taylor@bdpct.nhs.uk

About iPLATO

iPLATO is a privately owned limited company founded in London in the autumn of 1999. Over the last four years the company has invested substantial resources towards overcoming the barriers to entry of the United Kingdom healthcare market and building a mobile healthcare business. In 2003, iPLATO was awarded a SMART Feasibility Grant by the Department of Trade & Industry to study the feasibility of a national implementation of a system to remind outpatients about scheduled appointments using text messaging technology.

Since completing the study, the company has built a promising business around its flagship service - Patient Care Messaging. The European Venture Contest, organised by the European Commission, recently recognised iPLATO as one of the top ten early stage technology ventures ready to “reshape their industry and to conquer the global market”. The company featured on the Red Herring Europe Top 200 of companies to watch in 2006.

Press Contact:

Julia Hanley
020 3178 4676
julia.hanley@iplato.net
One Lyric Square,  W6 0NB, London, United Kingdom
www.iplato.net