Topics: Industry insights Product announcement Care Hub
For over 12 years, we’ve been at the forefront of patient engagement, proudly supporting NHS Trusts in delivering efficient, patient-oriented care. With over 2 million patients using our platform each day, we’ve found ourselves returning to the same question:
"How could we help teams engage with these patients to contribute to better health outcomes at scale?”
Traditional patient engagement has always centred around supporting reactive models of care: a patient's health deteriorates, they enter the health system, and our technology supports teams to efficiently and effectively progress them through their care journey to the point of discharge.
While this helps patients to progress through the system, the problem is, once a patient's health condition escalates and they commence their care journey - even after the point of discharge – often their health never fully returns to baseline.
For example, when patients are awaiting knee replacement surgery, some may lose muscle mass or worse: struggle to fully recover, because they didn’t have access to the necessary tools or resources to be prepared for the surgery and resulting recovery period.
But what if care could be delivered before the point of escalation?
What they had access to the tools to proactively manage their own health?
Shifting from Reactive to Proactive
Reactive care models are (and will always be) a critical component of healthcare. People will always face unexpected illnesses or injuries that require immediate attention. Supporting teams to help their patients progress through the system and provide wider access to care will always be at the core of what we do.
But this traditional care model that has long served the NHS is no longer sufficient to meet the evolving health needs of our population. As life expectancy increases, so too does the prevalence of chronic illnesses and conditions.
In the UK, the number of people living with multiple chronic conditions has risen significantly. By 2035, it's projected that 17% of people aged 65 or over will be living with four or more chronic conditions, and two-thirds of those will have mental ill-health (dementia, depression, cognitive impairment no dementia).
To help the growing population manage this shift, our NHS needs to adopt a more proactive approach to healthcare.
A study by Clinical Medicine disclosed that patients with the most knowledge, confidence and skills to manage their own health make:
- 19% fewer GP visits.
- 38% fewer A&E trips.
Engaging patients early in their healthcare journey improves their health outcomes, reduces the strain on services and could save the NHS an estimated £470 million annually.
And these aren't just numbers. They represent a fundamental change in how healthcare can be both delivered and experienced.
Connecting the Dots with Care Hub
Early detection and prevention care models aren’t new concepts.
And neither are the digital tools to do so.
Patient Engagement Platforms (PEPs), Personal Health Records (PHRs) and self-management tools have been around for years, with each serving important but often separate functions in the patient care journey.
What is new however, is a provider that brings each under an all-in-one, care co-ordination platform.
At the heart of Care Hub is a powerful idea: that patients, when given the right tools, can become active participants in their own health journey, staying healthier and happier for longer.
By unifying our best-in-class, actionable patient engagement capabilities with preventive and supported-self management tools, Care Hub represents a monumental shift in the way we support care teams and providers.
Stretching beyond our traditional patient engagement solutions, we're helping the NHS deliver a truly joined-up patient experience from a single, unified platform - accessible anytime, anywhere.
Why Joined-Up Care Matters
No two patients are the same.
It's crucial that care delivery is as finely-tuned to the individual as possible, and to do so, we need to better understand our patients in wider context. Encouraging patients to become active participants in their care journey helps us build a better picture of who they are as individuals, rather than just a collection of symptoms.
Delivering joined-up care requires significant co-ordination across the many different services, systems and teams across the NHS.
But where we really need to start, is with the patient.
Care Hub empowers patients with multiple or complex health conditions to track and monitor their wellbeing independently, only seeking help when they need it. This not only eases the burden on our health system and removes duplication of services, but also helps ensure patient's unique needs can be understood and met comprehensively, rather than in a fragmented manner.
By equipping patients with the tools, skills and confidence to manage their health independently, we're encouraging them to become active participants in their care journey and laying the foundations for teams to deliver more personalised, joined-up care at scale.
This isn't just about keeping patients progressing through the health system or managing illness. It's about promoting wellness on a scale never seen in the NHS, and adding years of quality life to millions of people across the UK.
Supporting a changing population and NHS
We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, but we are trying to reimagine how we deliver care at DrDoctor, aligning our support with the three essential shifts that are foundational for the future of the NHS.
By enabling patients to manage their health from home, we can reduce hospital visits and conserving NHS resources. For example, patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) can monitor symptoms and only seek in-person care when necessary, retaining a community-centred approach.
With holistic health information surfaced and centralised, patients can have a more consistent and accessible digital front-door, who are empowered to make lifestyle adjustments to further prevent hospital admissions. For example, epilepsy patients can securely share recorded seizure activity, enabling clinicians to remotely monitor their condition and intervene if and when necessary.
Care Hub encourages a whole new way of thinking about patient care, helping the NHS lay new foundations for models of early intervention and prevention.
Together, we can create a healthier, more empowered population and a more sustainable NHS.