PKB is the digital solution for many cardiac teams wanting to improve their digital pathways. Providing digital informed consent, digitalised shared decision tool care plans, pre and post-surgery questionnaires and care plans, giving patients advice, reducing clinical appointment time, saving hospital money and improving the experience for both the patient and the clinical teams.

PKB's messaging and questionnaire functionality can help teams complete earlier pre-operative screening to help identify patients with additional health needs who would benefit from extra support both before and after surgery. The library and care plan features can give patients information pre and post-op and provide hospitals with a digital waiting well solution.

Use Cases

Across the UK, 22 Cardiology teams use PKB to innovate, streamline workflows, and enhance patient care.  A great example is the heart failure team at University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust.  Leveraging PKB’s messaging and library functions, they have reduced phone calls and introduced a PIFU pathway:

• Phones calls down by 33%, resulting in a 15% time saving and fewer interruptions to their workflow

• Patients can now message health information such as blood pressure readings, which supports decision-making and efficient management between appointments.

• Messaging is also facilitating safer communication of medication changes, reducing the risk of mishearing instruction.

To read the full case study, click here.

Chelsea & Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust’s Heart Failure

The Heart Failure (HF) team has pioneered using Patients Know Best’s digital tools to enable remote monitoring and self-management and reduce unplanned hospital admission/attendance. Building on early learnings, in 2023 this has successfully been extended to underserved patients and supporting the implementation of a digital offer across the heart failure pathway. To read the full case study click here.

Key Features

There are key PKB features all cardiac services can use with their patients. A list of them is below.

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 PIFU.

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

• Patient Reported Outcomes (PROMS)

• WLV questionnaire example

• Capturing Digital Outcome Measures

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

• Universal Messaging is the ability for patients to message clinical and non-clinical teams

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

  Open

  

Library 

• Waiting Well resources

• Online patient leaflets

• Cardiac support group information

• British Heart Foundation information and resources

• Videos

Open

Care plans 

PKB care plans can be used at every stage of a patient's condition journey. 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. Below are some of the care plan templates being used and templates that can be created.

• Monitoring condition plan (example cardiology monitoring care plan)

• Goals setting care plan

• Peri-operative care plans

• Making a Decision About Further Treatment for Atrial Fibrillation Care Plan

• Peri-operative care plans templates

• Symptoms tracking in monitoring care plan templates

• Personalised care plan templates

• Consent care plans

• Enhanced recovery care plans

• Treatment care plans

Appointments 

• Appointment letters and appointments sent to PKB via integration

• Manually entered appointments

Journal

• Digitalise journal

• Pre-surgery and post-surgery to support enhanced recovery programs

Data

• Sharing blood results

• Appointments

• Appointment letters

• Clinical letters

Workflow

Patients are given the Heart Failure care plan by the Heart Failure Team (HFT) to track their symptoms related to their heart failure and record their blood pressure. The care plan has advice, videos and an escalation plan for when it’s needed. The care plan is reviewed by the HFT in the patients appointment.

‘PKB has allowed me to encourage patients to record their BP readings at home more frequently and adjust meds.’

SMART Goal

Reduce waiting list for the ………… team by December 2024 (... months post admin team go live) from (current waiting list times) to ( %) by validating all patients on the waiting for appointments by sending them a digital questionnaire through PKB instead of by post or not at all.  Current waiting list rates are (%). …. months post-going live, the team compared the waiting list of patients with and without a PKB record. It is a local NHS priority to reduce waiting lists to save money.

Reduce the number of missed appointments (DNA) for the cardiac team by Sept 2024 (12 months post team go live) from (current missed appointments) to ( %) by sending all appointment letters and appointment details into PKB instead of by post. Current missed appointment rates are (%). 12 months post-going live, the team compared missed appointment rates of patients with and without a PKB record. It is a local NHS priority to reduce missed appointments to save money.

Further information

• Heart failure care plan: symptom tracker care plan for patients

• Maternity high blood pressure care plan: patients given take-home BP machines to track in the care plan

• Heart failure SMART goals: examples of SMART goals written for patients and the clinicians

• Connecting PKB to FibriCheck: FibriCheck has integrated with PKB to allow users to share their data. Measurements, symptoms and care plans are all viewed within the PKB record.