Patients Know Best supplies more NHS trusts with PHR solution

Patients Know Best (PKB) has seen two more NHS trusts sign contracts for its personal health record solutions, allowing patients a single resource from which to access their health and care information and find digital self-care tools.

Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust has become the third trust within Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICS to deploy the patient-centric Patients Know Best (PKB) solution.

As well as enhancing the care it offers, the trust hopes that the personal health record (PHR) will help it to make direct cash-releasing savings and reduce its did not attend rate through the use of digital correspondence.

Chris Ibell, Midlands Partnership’s chief digital information officer, said: “One of the key ambitions of the trust’s digital strategy is to connect our service users to secure and reliable systems that are flexible, accessible and offer more choice in how care is accessed and delivered.

“The Patients Know Best (PKB) portal provides a secure way for our service users in Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent to access their health and care information in a quick and easy way”.

Integration with NHS app

Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICS has already enabled PKB inside the NHS app. This means that any information Midlands Partnership shares with patients via PKB, will also be visible directly within the NHS app.

In addition, the trust intends to use the PKB platform to underpin its Making Every Contact Count programme. Using PKB the trust would like to support users to make sustainable changes to their lifestyle with on-demand access to educational material and resources for self-care. Plus, people will be signposted to local services that offer interventions for smoking cessation, physical activity and weight management.

Sally Rennison, chief commercial officer at Patients Know Best, said: “One of the intentions behind ICS/ICB formation is to unify and improve working across the health and social care sector.  It’s particularly exciting therefore to not only contract another trust in the Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent ICS, but to expand beyond acute to include mental health services.

“We are delighted to support the ICS in providing a more cohesive patient engagement portal experience for residents and hope it will provide a useful blueprint for others exploring their plans in this area.”

Barnet, Enfield and Haringey signs PKB contract

Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust has also signed a contract with PKB, which will see the latter provide its PHR solution to the trust for five years.

Following Patient User Group sessions, the trust plans on using tools in PKB such as shared personalised care planning, sharing digital correspondence and appointment information, issuing questionnaires, symptom tracking, as well as the personalised digital library of resources and device integration.

The use of the tool will mean healthcare professionals at the trust will gain a better understanding of a patient ahead of a consultation. It will enable patients to document their history, thoughts and feelings in their own words, in their own time.

In addition, PKB will support the trust to effectively monitor patients remotely, and spot deterioration early so crisis support can be put in place.

Emily Burch, associate director of physical health at Barnet, Enfield and Haringey, said “For children and young adults today’s technology isn’t redefining a generation, this generation are redefining technology and how it is used. They have grown up in the digital revolution and the expectation is for data and information to be at their fingertips and interact the way they want.

“We are excited to be working alongside our children and young adults with PKB to design a patient-held record that delivers direct access to records for our CAMHS population and transform the delivery of care, driven and co-designed by our service users.”

Just over a year ago, North East London Health and Care Partnership signed a deal with Patients Know Best to provide its 2.2million patients access to a PHR.