A mapping and feedback system that allows patients to flag up problems with their journey through the NHS system is being tested in a GP’s surgery in Whitechapel, east London.
The web-based system, called Journeys, was developed by healthcare design consultancy, Thinkpublic. It allows patients to document their experiences throughout their journey through the NHS and for the feedback to be delivered immediately to relevant departments.
Deborah Szebeko, founder and managing director of Thinkpublic, told EHI Primary Care that many clinicians already used mapping software. However, the Journeys system is designed around patients and is intended to measure the patients’ real journey, not what a clinician thinks it is.
"This is giving them a tool to let them communicate in the same league," said Szebeko.
For instance, said Szebeko, a patient referred for the treatment of a leg ulcer might not mind waiting an extra week to be seen if it can be at a more convenient place, but may not have the opportunity to say so. The Journeys system would allow the patient to flag this problem up and can help processes be redesigned around the patient.
The system is also undergoing continuous development according to patient and staff needs. "What we are doing now is going into the pilot stage," said Szebeko, adding that she was planning to work with the Royal College of Nursing and a number of healthcare organisations and hospitals.
Patients who are not accomplished internet users will be helped by local community champions for the system who will either help them to access Journeys or hold workshops with harder-to-reach groups and report findings back to healthcare providers.
Szebecko said there was also a possibility that Journeys could be accessed via bedside entertainment terminals by hospital patients.
Thinkpublic believe that Journeys has the potential to fit into the National Programme for IT to help identify areas of best practice and areas that can be improved using a central, patient-led system.
The company adds that the Journeys system could also be a valuable source of data for health planning and help the NHS set in motion a learning culture, and help clinicians and staff work with the community more easily.
Elaine Young, project director at the STRIP (Service Transformation Redesign and Innovation Projects) health guides pilot scheme in North East London SHA said: "The Journeys methodology of obtaining feedback from users about their experience of the NHS during a specific period of care would provide a valuable unity, and ensure that planning and improvement of local health services would genuinely reflect the real needs of the local population."
Thinkpublic, a health services design and communication agency, worked with NESTA’s (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) Creative Pioneer Programme to develop the Journeys system.
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