Lewisham Primary Care Trust Launches Text Message Appointment Reminders
Service aims to reduce missed appointments by 25% over 12 months.
London (PRWEB) July 15, 2006
Lewisham Primary Care Trust has launched iPLATO Patient Care Messaging at GP surgeries throughout Lewisham. Patients at Morden Hill Surgery, Vesta Road Surgery, Muirkirk Road Surgery, Wells Park Practice, Brockley Road Surgery, Rushey Green Group Practice and the Kingfisher Surgery will receive appointment reminders and health information directly to their mobile phones. These practices became involved in this new service because they have higher levels of patients who do not attend appointments.
To access the service, which is free of charge, the patients will have to register their mobile phone number at their surgery. This will be the largest deployment of iPLATO Patient Care Messaging to date in the United Kingdom. Leaflets with further information are available at all those GP practices involved.
The Imperial College of London recently estimated that missed appointments ("Did-not-attends") cost the NHS approximately £789 million per year. This study also suggested that the NHS could save £240 - £370 million per year by launching text appointment reminders throughout England.
"Mobile patient services are the way forward in Lewisham", said Simon Gosney, Minor Illness Service Improvement Facilitator at Lewisham PCT. "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."
Lewisham Primary Care Trust chose iPLATO for its long experience in UK primary care. Patient Care Messaging is functional and secure. It improves service without adding extra work for healthcare staff and integrates seamlessly with existing systems used by GPs to book appointments and clinics. In addition to appointment reminders, GPs will use Patient Care Messaging to create and manage text campaigns to remind patients about flu-jabs and childhood immunisations, which are an important issue in Lewisham. The service is operational in ten other Primary Care Trusts where it has dramatically increased operational efficiency and the quality of care.
"Lewisham Primary Care Trust has proved to be innovative and forward-thinking by introducing Patient Care Messaging," said Tobias Alpsten, Managing Director of iPLATO. "It is a borough that faces many challenges and we support the PCT not only with our technology but, more importantly, with our unparalleled experience in delivering radical improvements to cost efficiency and quality of care."
Lewisham Primary Care Trust will be reviewing the effectiveness of the Text Messaging Service in March 2007, before recommending it to other GP practices in Lewisham.
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