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: [1] pressoffice@buyingsolutions.gsi.gov.uk  
Web: [2] www.buyingsolutions.gov.uk

[3]

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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[4] 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 ([5] 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.

[6] [7] London, December  10^th 2009. The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery announced today that it is launching a new service to support people with epilepsy.  This innovative service, offered in partnership with iPLATO Healthcare, aims to help the hospital’s patients improve the management of their condition using web and mobile based technology. The service will offer medication support for people with epilepsy with the option of alerts for carers, as well as helping them monitor their overall condition through a web based patient diary. 

To start with, Mobile and Internet Support for People with Epilepsy will offer:

Medication Support - will use text messaging to remind patients to take their medication. Patients will be able to choose their level of personalised medication support depending on preference and medical / social need. The most intense medication support will require the patient to confirm that they have taken their medication by reply text that, if not received, will send an alert to their nominated carer.  Medication Support will also support medication changes by reminding people to adjust dosages when planned changes to medication are due to take place.

Patient Diary - aims to assist with recording of essential information for epilepsy monitoring. Using a secure, password protected, web interface patients will have the opportunity to record seizures, injuries and medication profiles if they wish. The web service will also allow them to update some of this information directly via their mobile phone.  Patients will be able to run reports over a specific period and bring this information along to their consultations.

Statement from Professor John Duncan, Professor of Neurology: “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.”

Statement from Anthony Linklater, Epilepsy Specialist Nurse: “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.”

“We believe there is a huge need for low cost telehealth services in the United Kingdom and elsewhere” says Tobias Alpsten, CEO iPLATO Healthcare. “We have always struggled with the notion that telehealth should require custom built hardware. By delivering a service to devices that patients already own we dramatically reduce costs, reduce barriers to usage while delivering solid health outcomes”.

Funded by UCB Pharma Ltd and the National Hospital Development Foundation for the next year, this service will be free to epilepsy patients of the National Hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery. Patients can sign up by contacting the Epilepsy Specialist Nurse. Healthcare providers, payers and individuals who are interested in this service (outside the National Hospital) should get in touch with iPLATO Healthcare.

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About the National Hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery (NHNN):

The NHNN, part of University College Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, is a leading centre for the diagnosis, treatment and care of patients with a wide range of neurological conditions such as epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, stroke and head injuries. With its neighbour, the Institute of Neurology, it is a major international centre for research and training. The NHNN provides comprehensive neurology and neurosurgery services for our other hospitals, including an acute brain injury unit, the national prion clinic and a neurorehabilitation unit.

NHNN Contact
Anthony Linklater
020 3018 0127
[8] epilepsy@uchl.nhs.uk

Coverage 2009[9] Coverage 2007[10] Coverage 2008

Coverage 2008[9] Coverage 2007

Coverage 2007

[11] 22 October 2009. Patients of GP practices in Greenwich will soon benefit from receiving text messages to support  health promotion and patient ‘access’. NHS Greenwich has recently funded iPLATO Patient Care Messaging for 39 Greenwich surgeries. This new text messaging service aims to provide an effective communication channel for the support of health promotion campaigns such as Stop Smoking and also help reduce the number of missed GP appointments, by automated appointment reminders.

The iPLATO service has proved to reduce missed GP appointments in General Practice by between 26% and 40%, and has proven to be a highly effective and efficient method of when used to promote Public Health services.

The iPLATO service allows healthcare providers to engage with smokers through their mobile phones, rather than traditional methods of broadcasting population-wide messages via posters or adverts.  By taking this approach, the PCT expects to significantly and cost effectively increase the number of people seeking support from the Stop Smoking Services.  

From searches made on their GP system, surgeries can send out a text message asking patients to text back if they smoke or not. Patients who receive this message can text back their response by a reply text, received by the GP surgery  as an email to a designated surgery email address.  All patients identified as smokers can then be sent an additional text message inviting them to Smoking Cessation support and advice. 

With an estimated 82% of the UK adult population owning a mobile phone, surgeries will be able to reach a significant number of their patients through this scheme. To achieve optimal uptake of the service, surgeries can encourage their patients to hand in their mobile contact details for their records to be updated.

Julie Richardson, Head of GP Support & Delivery at Greenwich PCT said, “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”.

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Notes for Editors:

About Greenwich PCT:

NHS Greenwich is the lead organisation for the NHS in Greenwich and is responsible for commissioning the health services needed by local people.

We will significantly improve health solutions and reduce health inequalities across Greenwich so that local people feel positive about the care and support they experience from the services we commission.

We know that we need to tailor health solutions to suit the health needs of the local population and we will provide knowledgeable, strong and high profile leadership to deliver this vision.

NHS Greenwich is committed to building and strengthening partnerships with other commissioners and providers who can help us - and we will prioritise tasks and activities that are likely to have the most impact on delivering this vision.  

PCT Contact:
Claire Small
020 8293 6772
[12] claire.small@greenwichpct.nhs.uk

[13] London, 8^th October 2009, An innovative scheme to use mobile technology to obtain a patient’s current smoking status and invite ‘quitters’ for Smoking Cessation services, has proved a great success in NHS Hammersmith and Fulham.  NHS Hammersmith and Fulham have a smoking prevalence of 24.2% and are committed to cutting that number down every year.

The recent scheme using iPLATO Patient Care Messaging, requested a patient’s smoking status via text message.  Patients could respond via reply text - all patient replies being converted to an email and sent back to the relevant surgery email address. Once identified as a smoker, the patients could then be sent an additional text message inviting them to enrol in Stop Smoking programmes. The results were presented this year at the UK National Smoking Cessation Conference (UKNSCC).

22 GP surgeries sent out a request for a patient’s smoking status via text message. The surgeries received 6,085 valid smoking status responses. Some of the top performing surgeries received as high as 57% valid response rates - 95% of those responses received within 24 hours of sending the original message.

After confirming smoking status, the surgeries sent out another text, to enrol smokers in quit programmes. This message invited smokers to text ‘quit’ to be contacted by a member of the local stop smoking team.  

Another way NHS Hammersmith and Fulham have reached out to smokers is by producing posters to be hung up around their borough. These posters direct patients to text ‘QUIT’ to a designated number printed on a poster, members of the public that text in to the designated ‘trigger’ number are subsequently contacted by the local Stop Smoking Service. The posters also give an option of a number to call if the ‘quitter’ does not want to text in. The iPLATO supported poster campaign ran for 6 months and generated 282 responses via text and approximately 300 by phone.

These initiatives have proved considerably more effective than traditional ways of obtaining information and reaching out to ‘smokers’. The cost savings possible with this approach has also proven to be compelling, when compared to the cost of previous methods employed for similar ends.

Tim Roberts Stop-Smoking Manager, NHS Hammersmith and Fulham said, “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.”

iPLATO Patient Care Messaging is increasingly being funded by PCTs for GP surgeries across the UK and is being used to address important Public Health concerns such as CVD, Smoking, Sexual

Health, Flu, Childhood Immunisations and Obesity.  The system works by integrating with the GPs’ clinical system where patient records are stored.  GP surgeries can search the clinical information they hold on their clinical systems to target specific groups of patients for SMS health promotion campaigns. 

 
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 About NHS Hammersmith and Fulham:

Hammersmith and Fulham Primary Care Trust (PCT) is the NHS organisation responsible for 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).

NHS Hammersmith and Fulham contact
Press and Communications Department
Tel: 020 3313 7226
[14] communications@hf-pct.nhs.uk

Patient Care Messaging is being used successfully by GP surgeries to support both health promotion initiatives such as Smoking Cessation, Flu Jab, Cancer Screening etc. as well as ‘Access’ initiatives via our system’s automated appointment reminders.

BUT…

Patient Care Messaging can only send a message to a patient if you have a mobile number recorded for them…

iPLATO Champion Award Details

The iPLATO Champion Award competition is aimed at encouraging GP surgeries to collect mobile numbers to support the above benefits being achieved.

If you would like

to participate in this competition please follow the steps below:

RULES:

• By filling in the form below, surgeries can register for the iPLATO Champion Award (awarded to a winning surgery every 2 months).
• The surgery that achieves the largest increase in mobile numbers recorded on their administration system (as a %) over the relevant 2 month period will win an iPLATO Champion Award (Champion for 2 Months only!).
• The two month period will start December 1^st,  February 1^st,  April 1^st,  June 1^st,   August 1^st  and October 1^st..
• Entry for the competition will be 3 weeks before the next 2 month evaluation period.
• Any entries after each 3 week period will not be counted toward the current 2 month ‘Champion’ evaluation period but will be added into the next two month evaluation period.
• Our winners will be announced in our newsletter.
• Multiple entrees to this competition is permissible.

PRIZES:

The winning surgery will get:

• A £150 voucher (from a choice of Selfridges, John Lewis or Marks and Spencer!)

• £50 gift certificate to MagazineSubscription.co.uk for you and/or your patients to choose new magazines for your surgery waiting room (subscription for a year).

As the patients play a role in helping you win (by providing you with their numbers!!) We recommend letting the patients know about this offer, as it may help encourage them to help you collect their mobile numbers to win these magazines for the waiting room.

Please see below a PDF’d poster for you to download and put up in your waiting room to remind patients to hand in their mobile numbers and help you win!

[15] [View Poster]

Good Luck!

Phil Sissons - Non-Executive Director

Phil Sissons joined iPLATO as a non-executive director in January 2006 bringing over 30 years of experience in the international IT Services industry to the company.

Phil’s experience includes five years leading Oracle Corporation’s Healthcare Division. In 1994 Phil moved to SMS United Kingdom to sharpen his focus on Healthcare information systems and in 2002 Richard Granger chose Phil to represent the National Programme for NHS IT to Industry.

Phil supports the Intellect UK trade association, particularly in the Healthcare Interest Group. For the years of 1995/96 and 1999/2001, he held the role of Chairman of the Healthcare group and is currently on the Intellect UK Board and the Health Council.

Over the course of an intense career, Phil has represented the Health Computing industry on many issues (including standards, procurement, and PFI) with the Health Service.

Two-way Messaging

Reply texts from patients are automatically directed as emails to a predefined email address.

Targeted Campaign Messaging

Patient Care Messaging enables the creation and sending of manual text messages to individuals and/or groups of patients for targeted health promotion campaigns (excellent for QOF).

Automated Appointment Reminders

Automated appoint reminders can be sent to patients by text message at a pre-defined time before the surgery visit, significantly reducing the number of missed appointments.

National Read Code Functionality

The unique National Read Code functionality enables the Patient Medical Record to be automatically updated with the relevant Read Code, indicating a text message has been sent. In addition, a relevant ‘campaign specific’ Read Code can be attached to the outgoing message and the Patient Medical Record updated accordingly.

N3 Connection (NHSnet Hosting)

Patient Care Messaging is a secure solution and the only text messaging service to integrate to all major GP administration systems and also to be hosted within NHSnet.

Multiple PAS Integration

Patient Care Messaging fully integrates to all major GP Administration systems (including EMIS PCS & LV, INPS Vision, iSOFT).

Reporting Module Functionality

• User / administrator access to real time gateway status with visual status indicators.
• Advanced reporting wizard for generating customisable reports on: messages sent, messages received, pending, undelivered, invalid or failed numbers.
• Full messaging history with reports.
• All reports can be printed or exported into downloadable formats.

Voice Messaging

Automated voice messages can be sent to a patient’s mobile phone, stating who the call comes from and also who the call is for, in case the phone is shared between people within a household. Patients can be asked to respond to questions during the call, via keystroke on their telephone keypad. Voice messaging should be viewed as a natural extension of the iPLATO texting service, providing an additional channel of communication.

PATIENT CARE MESSAGING FOR PHARMACIES - SYSTEM FEATURES

Two-way messaging

Reply texts from patients are automatically directed as emails to a predefined email address.

N3 Connection (NHSnet Hosting)

Patient Care Messaging is a secure solution and the only text messaging service to integrate to all major GP administration systems and also to be hosted within NHSnet.

Reporting module functionality

• User / administrator access to real time gateway status with visual status indicators.
• Advanced reporting wizard for generating customisable reports on: messages sent, messages received, pending, undelivered, invalid or failed numbers.
• Full messaging history with reports.
• All reports can be printed or exported into downloadable formats.

Voice messaging

Automated voice messages can be sent to a patient’s mobile phone, stating who the call comes from and also who the call is for, in case the phone is shared between people within a household. Patients can be asked to respond to questions during the call, via keystroke on their telephone keypad. Voice messaging should be viewed as a natural extension of the iPLATO texting service, providing an additional channel of communication.

Recent ’iPLATO’ media coverage:

• [16] London’s LBC Radio speaks to iPLATO MD, Tobias Alpsten about the recent roll-out of Patient Care Messaging in Ealing, West London
• [17] e-Health Insider : Ealing PCT uses text message technology
• [18] Medical News Today reviews Ealing PCT’s text messaging roll-out to 22 GP surgeries
• [19] IT Pro analyses Ealing PCT’s decison to implement text messaging
• [20] Silicon.com “Ealing PCT chooses iPLATO and the Orange network as text messaging partners”
• [21] e-Health Insider looks at the INPS and iPLATO Partnership
• [22] Lewisham PCT chooses iPLATO for SMS reminders
• [16] BBC Essex: Interview with Dr Paul Husselbee, Nov 7, 2005
• [23] NHS Magazine: ‘…cut missed appointments and also promote public health’
• TimesOnline: ‘Bleeping sickness’
  
• HES Magazine: ‘Phone messaging to cut missed appointments’
  
• PublicTechnology: ‘NHS Mental Health Trust improves service with Patient Care Messaging’
  
• PublicTechnology: ‘Patient Care Messaging system cuts missed appointments for Islington NHS PCT’
  
• BJHC: ‘Patient no-shows cut by automatic messaging system’
  
• [24] e-Health Insider: ‘SMS reminds patients of upcoming appointments’
• [25] SMS appointment reminders get language boost

[26] Click here to replay demonstration

Tobias Alpsten - Managing Director (Co-Founder)

As iPLATO’s Managing Director, Tobias Alpsten is responsible for setting overall strategy and for overseeing business development, sales, innovation and service delivery.

Tobias works in partnership with leading academic institutions such as the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery and the Imperial College on research in the area of mobile health. Tobias is a frequent speaker at events and conferences. He is also supporting the British government in setting national strategies for technology based innovation in healthcare through the Horizon Scanning initiative.

Tobias started his career at Accenture’s Paris office in 1996. Later based in London, he joined the ‘Internet revolution’ in 1997 specialising in e-procurement strategy and Business Process Outsourcing. Tobias left Accenture to set up a independent mobile technology consultancy in London in 2000.

Tobias holds a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology from KTH (the Royal Institute of Technology) in Stockholm and ENST (Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications) in Paris. He is trilingual in English, French and Swedish.

Martin Rowden - Director Finance & Operations (Co-Founder)

Martin is the CFO of iPLATO and co-founder of the business. In additional to the traditional CFO responsibilities Martin manages all operational aspects of the organisation including the development and support of the company’s mHealth technology solutions.

Martin’s background offers a range of entrepreneurial expertise matched with institutional and global experience spanning over 20 years.

With a BEc and as a qualified Chartered Accountant (ACA), Martin spent 10 years with PriceWaterhouseCoopers in both Canada and Australia in the Financial Advisory Services division before moving to the UK in 1997 and following his passion as an entrepreneur.

Since 19997 Martin has been involved (in varying executive and non-executive roles) in no less than 6 successful technology ‘start-ups’. In 2005 he co-founded iPLATO Healthcare with Tobias to focus on the nascent but emerging area of mHealth.

iPLATO is looking for commercial and solution partners around the world. If your company is interested in partnering with us or would like to find out more information please contact us at: [27] info@iplato.net