Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust has expanded its Friends and Family Test app to allow more frequent updates and new functionalities.
It also reports that several other NHS organisations are interested in deploying the app.
The trust developed the app in conjunction with Winchester Innovation and launched it last November.
The app allows patients to answer the FFT questions and leave comments, and also contains information for patients and visitors such as contact details, a map of the hospital and news items on the trust’s website.
The FFT requires trusts to ask inpatients and emergency patients how likely they are to recommend the A&E or ward they were on to friends and family, if they needed similar care or treatment.
An Android version of the app was released last December, while a new content management system has been introduced to allow staff to continually update content.
Katrina Glaister, the trust’s clinical governance facilitator, told EHI the changes have made it easier for the trust to add timely or important information for patients.
“We can now make amendments ourselves via the dashboard, so we can upload news, make any changes to the maps instantly, and if we wanted to put our menus up for the day, we could do that – it’s about making it as useful as possible for patients.”
Glaister said the trust has received unsolicited feedback from patients and visitors praising the app’s ease of use.
The trust will update the app in response to a recent review of the test, which found response rates are lower than other national health surveys and suggests taking steps to improve data quality.
Glaister said the trust wants to “drive up usage” of the test via the app by promoting it in areas with the greatest number of patients so it can make changes and expand its functionality.
“We’ve got to get over the initial hump and get enough people using it so we can use it more widely and make it more innovative.”
The trust is looking at introducing a ‘wayfinding’ feature to help patients navigate the inside of the hospital with an upgrade of its wireless internet networks, she said.
“Getting around a hospital is difficult, I don’t think any hospital is really good…and if you’re late to an appointment and you’re anxious, the last thing you want is to get lost.”
Winchester Innovation managing director Nick Thorne said several other primary and secondary care providers are in discussions to deploy the app, with some having already placed orders.
The FFT will be extended to cover maternity departments as well as to GPs, community and mental health services from January 2015.
Other areas of acute care – such as outpatient and day case services – and other areas of primary care – such as pharmacists, dentists and opticians – must start using the test by April 2015.