Abstract
Abstract Background We live in an age where digital interactions are the norm. These may take the form of communication with friends and family, social media, contacting your bank or reading the daily news. Most of our rheumatology patients have smartphones or other digital platforms to access these. Healthcare, however, lags in adopting technology. Digital health solutions such as 'GP at hand' (Babylon) are still seen as disruptive market innovations. NHS improvement would like to reduce face-to-face activity by 10% through forms of digital enablement. We set out to develop our own platform, using a smartphone-enabled app. The aim is to remotely support a patient’s self-management, collect patient reported outcomes (PROMs) and facilitate patient-department communication. We describe the development of the app and early experience of use. Methods We conducted stakeholder meetings with expert patients, clinicians and app developers. In 2015 we launched a pilot app. Following user feedback, a full version of the app was launched in September 2018. In compliance with EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws, it currently works as a standalone tool separate to hospital Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems at King's College Hospital. App awareness took place through clinic appointments and a patient educational event. Patients download and register through Android or iOS operated devices. Basic information and explicit consent for data use are gathered. Data are stored on a cloud-based platform accessible to the clinical team and extracts anonymised for analysis. Results 301 patients registered with the app in the first year since launch. Mean age was 44 years (Median 42.5 (IQR 35-53), Range 16-76) slightly younger than that of our local cohort. Clinical enquiries recorded via email have steadily increased since the app’s inception, rising from 2 throughout September 2018 to 209 in September 2019. Almost 25% of patients entered PROMs. These were performed on 115 occasions by 70 different patients (Median 1, Range 1-12). 52 (17.3%) patients used the app to store medication reminders. User feedback has identified positive aspects: links to patient education resources, medication reminders and rapid direct clinical communication. Negative aspects include: no link to the EHR system, inability to change or view appointments, inability to request blood tests. Conclusion We have demonstrated in this project that an app is feasible to use in a rheumatology clinical practice setting, providing a mechanism for collecting patient information and enabling self-management. Use of healthcare apps is clearly not for everyone, with only a minority of our patients using our platform. For apps to be sustainable they need to be of targeted benefit with proportionate investment. A key future strategy is to strengthen our self-management interface and integrate with our EHR systems. Disclosures B.D. Clarke None. L. James None. H. Lapham None. C. Congreve None. S. Steer None. N. Alaghband None. J.B. Galloway Grants/research support; J.G. receives a grant from Pfizer to support the development of this app.
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