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Why
Prevent letter postage for patients who successfully read the letter Reduce postage costs: Automatically avoid sending physical letters to patients who have already read them digitally in PKB.
Maintain postage of Ensure inclusivity: Continue posting letters to patients who have not yet read accessed the digital letter in PKB.Avoid making patients choose upfront between postage and digital because most ask for both as they worry about missing their letter. Even patients who are happy with digital may get sicker and no longer be able to read letters digitally in the future. Other patients who believe they cannot read digital may get better, and their relatives may help them register, over time. It is better to focus on the behaviour of the patient with each letter rather than ask them upfront to choose all future delivery methodsversion, ensuring no one misses important information.
Focus on real-time behaviour: Adjust delivery methods based on patient's interaction with each letter.
Outcomes
Over 2,100,000 letters were sent digitally rather than in the post via PKB, with an environmental saving of over 292tCO2e
328,829 letters sent digitally rather than in the post between 1st April 2023 - 30th June 2023, making an environmental saving of 45tCO2e, as well as the associated financial savings, with some highlights including:
University Hospitals of Derby & Burton sent 59,450 letters digitally during this time, with 90% of their digital letters read before they would have gotten them in the post.
Hull University Teaching Hospitals sent 53,894 letters digitally during this time, with 85% of their digital letters read before their postal date.
East Sussex Healthcare sent 44,348 letters digitally during this time, with and 86% of their digital letters them were read before their postal date.
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PKB provides this tracking information to the healthcare provider’s letter-posting system (hybrid mail). The letter-posting system only posts letters that the patient has not read digitally in PKB. The health care provider saves money from the avoided postage without risking missed appointments from patients who never got to read the letter.
PKB tracks the avoided costs and reduced carbon footprint in the statistics dashboard:, providing customers with actionable insights to monitor their savings and confidently report outcomes to their boards or support case studies.
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How
A mail (postal company) partner will process documents received from a customer and send these digitally to PKB using an HL7 message. The partner can check the registration status of the patient on PKB and, if eligible, may can invite the patient to sign up to PKB using generated tokens. If
Suppose documents sent digitally to PKB are not read , then within a decided-upon timeframe. In that case, the mail partner can send them in the post by querying the read status of the document in PKB using the read receipt query.Many different letters can be sent to PKB, including appointment letters, discharge summaries, patient leaflets and clinic letters.
The patient
The patient is notified that they have a new document is in their record. They click the hyperlink to open the message and view the document as a PDF . If the patient has difficulty opening the document, they can report the issue and receive a postal copy of the letter(see screenshots below), or download it to a device if needed.
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Hospitals decide the rules as to when documents should be posted - for . For example, for an appointment ten days away, the customer implements a rule that if the letter is unread within 72 hours, a postal copy is sent. The configuration of these These rules are done configured with the support of PKB Integrations and the Hybrid Mail partner.
Letter types
Appointment In and outpatient appointment letters: confirmations, reminders, reschedules, referral acknowledgement letters or missed appointment letters.
Treatment letters: admission, discharge letters and summaries, operative reports, clinician review summaries, pre-assessments including patient leaflets and advice, Multidisciplinary team meeting notes, health screening reports or follow-up instructions letters.
Test letters: screening invitations, test results , or requests for further tests.
Referral letters: updates, outcomes, or next steps.
Health monitoring: check-up invitations or chronic condition updates.
Administrative letters: consent forms or service access details.
Informational letters: health advice, health promotion, birth reports, support documents, signposting documents or care summaries.
Urgent letters: emergency scheduling or recalls.
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The workflows below show how hybrid mail and PKB partnerships are used to support NHS priorities such as eMeet and Greet - allowing . These partnerships allow hospitals to advise patients that they have been added to a waiting list and a team. Patients receiving their appointment letter on PKB will see information about shared decision tools and waiting list validation questionnaires.
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send referral letters and subsequent appointment letters to patients via their PKB record.
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If you would like to discuss working with a hybrid mail partner in this way or want to reduce the number of letters sent to the patients in the post, please contact get in touch with your PKB Success Project Manager or Account Manager.