Patients Know Best (PKB), a digital personal health record, is used by dermatology teams in many different ways with their patients to improve pathways and give them access to their data. When thinking about using PKB in your team, it's important to have clear, achievable goals that will change the current patient and clinical pathways.

Goals included benefits such as better patient engagement and access to information materials including letters, care plans, a library of resources, secure messaging and personal clinical data such as test results, tracking symptoms and measurements.

Usecase

University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust

The deramotology team had a clear goal of bringing change and measuring benefits to their current clinical pathways for their patients, staff, and the Trust as a whole. The goals included benefits such as better patient engagement and access to information materials, including letters, care plans, a library of resources, and personal clinical data such as test results, tracking symptoms, and measurements.

Benefits realised

• Digitising at least 10% of all correspondence

• Facilitate remote communication

• Digitally questionnaires

• Reduced the number of unnecessary follow-up appointments

• Library feature in PKB for self help groups

“As a team we are seeing the benefits of how it saves time for both the staff and their patients, the blood forms which used to get lost are now sent via PKB and it has now become part of our daily consultations and they refer to it all the time. I now tell patients to message me via PKB instead of phoning.”

Joanne McWilliam, Senior Clinical Nurse Specialist Biologic’s

Swansea Bay University Health Board

The service supports patients with skin conditions like chronic eczema and psoriasis by providing online access to health information, enabling them to view blood results, arrange appointments, and collect medications conveniently, which previously required in-person outpatient appointments every 12 weeks for routine blood tests.

In the initial pilot study, clinicians used PKB to initiate virtual communication, follow-ups, and medication reviews. This avoided the need to call patients into the hospital for an appointment every 12 weeks.

Benefits realised

• 75% reduction in face-to-face outpatient appointments (reduced from 4 quarterly to 1 annual appointment)

• 264 appointments saved from 88 patients

• Patients empowered with the information and tools to:
  - communicate with clinical teams when needed
  - manage medication reviews and prescriptions remotely
  - understand the importance of blood monitoring for their dermatological condition.

Read how, by implementing a Patient-Initiated Follow-up strategy using PKB as an enabling tool, they achieved a 75% reduction in face-to-face outpatient appointments and eliminated their list of ‘Follow-up not booked’ patients here.

Dermatology workflow

Dermatology teams use PKB to provide guidance on managing their condition in a digital pathway. Library links are provided within the record to guide patients on an ongoing basis.

Key PKB features

PKB can be used in all areas of perioperative care. Below are the key featured teams already using.

Questionnaires

Patients can initiate a questionnaire by clicking Start Questionnaire on their homepage or directly within the NHS App. Once completed, the questionnaire can be sent to a professional or team.

Teams using the questionnaire tool can ensure the outcome of clinical reviews is recorded and the patient has a copy. Teams can also identify patients suitable for virtual appointments or pre-operative assessment questionnaires.

PKB's advanced questionnaire functionality

The features include:

• Scoring and calculations

• Branching, allowing patients to complete the parts of the questionnaire that are relevant to them

• Coded fields questionnaires can be mapped to clinical codes

• Patients can save drafts

• Send questionnaires to patients who aren’t registered or already in your team

Questionnaire templates

• Pre clinic questionnaires

• Post-operative questionnaires

• Psoriasis Epidemiology Screening Tool (PEST)

• Dermatology Quality of Life Index (DQLI)

Messaging

• Patients have access to message their healthcare team (saving time on the phone)

• The Admin team can triage messages. Either resolving or passing onto another speciality team

• Team-based messaging allows teams to automatically receive secure messages and questionnaires as a group rather than as individuals.

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Library

• A wealth of resources on all dermatological conditions

• National and local information and guidance

• Videos

• Hospital and organisation information

• Medication advice

Care plans

PKB have a care plan toolkit with examples of care plan templates used by teams. There is a process for teams to amend care plans or create new ones here.A selection of care plans are below.

• Symptoms tracking in monitoring care plan templates

• Personalised care plan templates

• Disease care plan with individualised templates with escalation plans

• A place to track and record symptoms related to the speciality

• Consent care plans

• Treatment care plans

Journal

• Digitalise journal

• Pre and post treatment to support enhanced recovery programs

Data

• Sharing blood results

• Appointments

• Appointment letters

• Clinical letters

Comms

• Provide clear information for patients on how to use PKB and what digital support the teams provide.

• Comms to staff on the new clinical and patient digital pathways

Dermatology workflow

Dermatology teams use PKB to provide guidance on managing their condition in a digital pathway. Library links are provided within the record to guide patients on an ongoing basis.

Further information:

• Improving clinical pathways for Dermatology patients: the benefits of better patient engagement and access to information

• Case Study from Swansea Bay: transforming the face of traditional dermatology services

• Dermatology care plan template: example of a care plan used by dermatology teams

• Dermatology questionnaire templates: Quality of Life and Psoriasis Epidemiology Screening Tool