Physiotherapy Team

Owned by Mohammad Al-Ubaydli
Last updated: Aug 22, 2024 by Hannah Johnson-Keck
7 min read

Introduction

Patients Know Best (PKB) has been utilized by various Orthopaedic teams for several years, spanning post-operative care, physiotherapy, pain management, and rheumatology. The aim is to improve the overall management of their patient cohort.

This page is crafted to illustrate how physiotherapy teams can use PKB, highlighting the essential features to attain their desired outcomes.

PKB plays a pivotal role in boosting patient engagement by granting individuals access to their health records, treatment plans, and pertinent information. Physiotherapy teams can use PKB to foster communication with patients, share customised exercise routines, and monitor progress.

Given that physiotherapy frequently involves exercises and rehabilitation activities, PKB facilitates the remote monitoring of patients' advancements. The information shared by patients enables the team to make necessary adjustments to treatment plans and offer timely guidance.

 

Current problems 

  • Teams experience a high level of face-to-face appointments

  • Telephone conversations are lengthy

  • Teams want to give patients online resources to support self-management

  • With large waiting times, patient conditions can improve and deteriorate, meaning care and health needs change 

  • High DNA rates

PKB solution 

  • Access to healthcare data in one secure place

  • Digital care plans and questionnaires

  • Access to appointment letters and appointments 

  • Online resource library

  • Secure messaging between patient and the team

  • Symptom and measurement tracker

  • Empowers patients to contribute to their own  goals

  • Prehab and rehab care plans and questionnaires

  • Shared decision-making tools

 

PKB Benefits 

  • Joining together data from different health providers 

  • Enables patients to track their own health and care

  • Improves communication

  • Supports prehab and rehab pathways

  • Reduce DNAs

  • Reduce unnecessary phone calls

  • Supports patients waiting well

Use cases of PKB

The below examples show how PKB is being used by physio or orthopaedic services, if you would like to know more about these teams and want to start using PKB in your service please speak to your Success PM or look at our case studies here for more examples of how PKB is being used in other areas.

Rheumatology team in Swansea Bay

PKB making a big difference to rheumatology patients in Swansea Bay by giving patients access to their blood results and clinical documents

Giving Allied Health Professionals the ability to access patients' records to provide a holistic care approach to patients within the Rheumatology Department. By educating patients, the team wants to reduce the number of unnecessary contacts via the Advice Line and allow virtual clinics to avoid the need for a patient to attend the clinic or even require a telephone call.

The Persistent Pain team at Hywel Dda

The team are working with patients with Osteoarthritis and Fibromyalgia as part of a study to see how the use of a PHR helps improve patient outcomes. The team uses questionnaires and library resources to support patients with long-term pain. This includes access to resources about their condition, exercises, sleep hygiene, goal setting, and the ability for patients to upload their own health data such as measurements and respond to questionnaires. 

Physio team

Using PKB to provide resources via the library for patients discharged without follow-up and for patients on a 6-month PIFU 'discharge' with a shared care plan, library resources, questionnaires and team messaging.

The MSK / physio team at Mid Yorks 

They recently went live with prehabilitation care plans for total knee and hip replacement, which include Versus Arthritis physio-led exercise videos and symptom tracking. They are also providing resources and using the Oxford Hip & Oxford Knee PROMs to monitor outcomes. 

For patients on the hip programme, there is also a ‘Furniture Heights’ questionnaire that they are asked to complete a few days before their surgery so that the physios can assess whether the patient has any additional needs at home that need addressing before they are discharged post-surgery.

Key features 

There are key PKB features all mental health services can use with their cohort to capture and view data. A list of them is below.

NHS App

Information from healthcare providers can be accessible via PKB’s web solution and via PKB’s jump off points in the NHS App; 

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

 

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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

Care plans 

PKB’s shared care plans are unique, as they can be co-created and co-edited by anyone with access to the patient's record, including patients and carers. They provide better direction for personalised care by:

 

Appointments

  • Appointment letters and appointments sent to PKB via integration

  • Access upcoming and past appointments

  • Including face-to-face, video and telephone consultations 

  • Share all details of the appointment

  • Across PKB sites, patients registering for PKB have led to a 34% reduction in DNA rates (comparing the same patient cohorts pre- and post-registration to the platform). PKB’s DNA page.

  • Appointment management includes scheduling appointments or virtual consultations.

Symptoms

  • Tracking and recording symptoms digitally

  • Guide patients on symptom management actions to take if required, RAG instructions

  •  Physio teams can use data from PKB to track outcomes over time

  • Information can help assess the effectiveness of treatments, identify patterns, and make data-driven decisions to optimize patient care.

  

 

Add and View Data

Patients can automatically be added to the correct team through an integrated demographics feed, whereby these resources will be readily available without any manual intervention required by professionals.

  • Patients can view hospitals and GP data where an integration with PKB has been set up

  • Data can include blood tests, x-ray reports, clinic and appointment letters, appointments and discharge summaries 

  • Patients can add information themselves

  • Patients can track key measurements and add any symptoms related to their mental health

Library

The PKB library capability is used to add educational materials, videos, and resources related to physiotherapy exercises and techniques. Physio teams can leverage these resources to empower patients with knowledge and encourage self-management.

Example Goal for using PKB

Reduce the number of patients not attending appointments (DNA) of the rheumatology team by Sept 2024 (12 months post team go live) from (current DNA rate) to ( %) by sending all appointment letters and appointment details into PKB instead of by post. Current DNA rates are (%). 12 months post go live, the team compare DNA rates of patients with and without a PKB record. It is a local NHS priority to reduce DNAs to save money.

Further information