Prevent letter postage for patients who successfully read the letter digitally in PKB.
Maintain postage of letters to patients who have not yet read 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 methods.
Over 2,100,000 letters 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 86% of their digital letters read before their postal date.
PKB tracks each letter, whether the patient has read it before the health care provider has to post the letter.
PKB provides this tracking information to the healthcare provider’s letter-posting system. 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 carbon footprint in the statistics dashboard:
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 invite the patient to sign up to PKB using generated tokens. If documents sent digitally to PKB are not read, then 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 is notified that they have a new document 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.
Hospitals decide the rules as to when documents should be posted - 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 rules are done with the support of PKB Integrations and the Hybrid Mail partner.
Appointment letters: confirmations, reminders, reschedules, or missed appointment letters.
Treatment letters: admission, discharge summaries, pre-assessments including patient leaflets and advice, 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 or PDF care plan summaries.
Urgent letters: emergency scheduling or recalls.
PKB works with hybrid mail partners, including Synertec and Xerox, at multiple Organisations across the UK.
The workflows below show how hybrid mail and PKB partnerships are used to support NHS priorities such as eMeet and Greet - allowing 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.
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 your PKB Success Project Manager or Account Manager.
How the PKB FHIR APIs can support a hybrid mail workstream FHIR APIs deploy page Hybrid mail partner example
Hybrid Mail could spell the end for old fashioned hospital appointment letters case study