A mobile app that allows patients to access all their medical information has now integrated with three major GP suppliers, making it available to more than 98% of England.
Evergreen Life first went live with EMIS last August and more recently TPP in June 2017 and Vision in July.
The service, which is on the NHS App Store, was developed by national healthcare company Evergreen Life which acquired PAERS Ltd, pioneers in online patient record access, and was accredited by the NHS in March this year.
Apps labelled ‘being tested in the NHS’ or ‘NHS Approved’ are part of an NHS programme. The Evergreen app is on the NHSD Framework, part of GPSoC Lot 1.
The app links a personal health record (PHR) with patient-facing services (PFS).
Brian Fisher, semi-retired GP and clinical and strategy director for Evergreen, said the aim is to help give patients more control, within the law, to own their own records.
He said since launching the app and going live with the suppliers, they have received good feedback from both patients and GPs.
“They say that the look and feel of the website and app are clean and simple and that using the app is straightforward and saves time and effort”, Fisher said.
“Practices are pleased with our responsiveness and our keenness to get things right and make things work smoothly for everyone.”
“We know, for instance, that having access to your GP record saves you and your practice time: if a third of a practice’s patients were to access their GP record at least twice a year, 10% of appointments would be saved, as people no longer have to come in to discuss simple things. They can book appointments without having to phone.”
Admittedly, Fisher said it has not been easy making the different systems from the different suppliers’ work in all circumstances.
“For the newer linkages, with TPP and with Vision, it is taking us a little time to ensure that all our services do everything that we want them to do.”
The app’s PHR enables you to add your health and fitness information such as blood pressure, cholesterol or body measurements. You can add your ‘over the counter’ medicines and it offers you reminders to take your medicines.
The PFS element enables you to access your GP record including test results, book GP appointments and order repeat prescriptions.
“We have begun offering targeted health messaging that will increasingly help people take the best health decisions for themselves”, Fisher said.
A target of one million users by July 2018 has been set by the company. “We listen to what our users are telling us, both GPs and patients, and we constantly improve our design and our delivery. The larger our population, the better we are going to serve them.”
Currently there are a total of over 250,000 users and 49,932 downloads of the app. Roughly the app gains about 3000 people a week on average.
Key benefits (Source: Evergreen Life)
- saves time and appointments
- robust – During the recent Wannacry cybercrisis, when many GP practices could no longer access their data, patients using our app and website were still able to access their data – and share it with their GPs and consultants
- safer for everyone – data can be securely shared and the patient can become the glue that holds the NHS together
- Offers the prospect of a holistic patient-centred record – we hope to bring together all your relevant health and care data in one place: your primary, secondary care and social care data
15 September 2017 @ 10:53
The app wants access to my photos, files, camera, microphone, location, identity, contacts, wi-fi, device id, call information. I don’t think so.
15 September 2017 @ 11:01
That sounds a bit over the top, though i expect they’ll say the camera is so you can send your GP a picture of that nasty zit, and the microphone for over the air triage etc. I can’t see any justification for contacts or the other items.
15 September 2017 @ 10:51
The app wants access to my photos, location, camera, microphone, contacts, identity wi-fi, device ID. I don’t think so.
15 September 2017 @ 09:52
Does Jeremy Hunt’s new initiative about apps and EPR make proprietary initiatives like this redundant? Or will it be a competitor to the Hunt system?
15 September 2017 @ 11:59
It seems that Hunt is doing something similar. All of these apps seem to be the same. If you think about it, they all have to interface with tpp and emis with their available APIs, so they’ll all have similar functionality…
14 September 2017 @ 16:45
How is this better than the GP System provider’s own mobile app? Other than for those that want more ads, that is?
13 September 2017 @ 12:52
@Stacey
Depends what you mean by “open share”. The app connects to the GP database and allows viewing of information that the GP surgery is the data controller for.
If community info is “viewable” by the GP surgery, it is unlikely to be uploaded to the GP record (when it would become part of the GP record), merely streamed and viewable in real time, or accessed via a third-party database/repository. In that case, the Evergreen App would have to connect directly to the Community EPR, or database repository.
13 September 2017 @ 12:27
“… if a third of a practice’s patients were to access their GP record at least twice a year, 10% of appointments would be saved, as people no longer have to come in to discuss simple things.”
This is hogwash. It’s likely that patients are MORE likely to go and see their GP as they will see any minor abnormality on their blood tests etc which are of no clinical significance and decide that they should make an appointment to see their doctor. And how many new patients will make an appointment to see their GP to discuss what is already mentioned on their heath records?
It’s a good idea to allow patients to see their records, but perhaps it would be wise to not make claims which are clearly inaccurate.
Also, how was the app not affected by wannacry? Is it not on the N3 network? Will my data was being pulled away to a third party database which seems to be selling third party services as mentioned “concerned patient” above. This is very concerning.
13 September 2017 @ 22:08
If this app is using GP Connect then the app should not be storing any of your data, just displaying it. Gp Connect uses modern technology that doesn’t require patient data to be in 3rd party databases or data warehouse.
N3, large part of the NHS, mobile phones weren’t subject to the malware attack.
Not sure about the increased/decrease appointments,
Suspect the worried patients will still go in.
13 September 2017 @ 23:21
So if this is the case then it’s not more robust against NHS attacks etc, as it is reliant on data from N3. The information in this article is very misleading…
14 September 2017 @ 16:39
Dear Matt,
The statement about time saving comes from a peer-reviewed research study http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17571472.2014.11493405 We asked patients for their experience and then extrapolated. Some people called more, but the vast majority called much much less often. It is not hogwash.
15 September 2017 @ 15:01
Dear bhfisher,
The article you linked to itself mentions how these findings have too many confounding factors to come to a conclusion and that there are several conflicting studies.
The studies in this article are of a predominantly white ethnic makeup and therefore are not representative of the whole of the UK.
Also, I couldn’t help but notice when reading the article that PAERS itself was involved in taking part in the study which is a massive conflict of interest akin to trusting coca-cola to carry our studies on diabetes.
Again, I’m not saying that sharing of electronic records is not an extremely important and good thing, but the benefits and claims in this article are not accurate.
18 September 2017 @ 11:36
Simple answer is Yes. This app from paers is based on GPSoC interfaces, its an absolute scandal that we are allowing private companies to push non NHS services. Has someone looked into this conflict of interest ? As a GP i would be closed down if i offered my private GP consultation directly to a NHS patient – why should Paers, Dr Brian Fisher, and Evergreen be any different when using NHS GPSoC data ? Scandalous.
13 September 2017 @ 11:02
Just created an account. Says approved by the NHS yet you are trying to sell me DNA tests(all four tests for £125!) and 20% off private GP consultations. Isn’t this a conflict of interest?
13 September 2017 @ 10:27
Are there any future plans to include medical records from Community Trusts where information is already in a open share with the GP practice?
14 September 2017 @ 16:41
We do intend to enable patients to see their hospital records and eventually their social care records, too. We are keen to work with Trusts to explore this in more detail. Please do get in touch if Trusts are interested to pursue.