Welcome to PKB's perioperative workflow, designed to streamline patient pathways during elective surgeries. PKB supports organisations in efficiently guiding patients through every stage of their surgical journey, from preoperative preparation to postoperative care. PKB aims to reduce costs, appointment times, and the need for follow-up visits by enabling patients to engage, track, and receive information throughout the process into their PKB record.

PKB Perioperative Pathway Workflow

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eMeet and Greet

eMeet and Greet is an initiative by the NHS that is part of Elective Recovery priorities. It aims to digitally optimise patient pathways for outpatient appointments. Patients are notified about their referral status and welcomed into the hospital's system through their PKB record. PKB facilitates communication during the waiting period, reducing patient anxiety and unnecessary inquiries. Hospitals send referral letters via PKB, which are accessible through the NHS App and PKB.

For further information on how you can use PKB for your eMeet and Greet initiatives, click here.

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Waitlist Validation

Reducing patient waiting lists has been a top priority for the NHS in recent years; the full case study detailing how Mid Yorkshire Teaching Hospital successfully decreased its waiting lists is here. For further information on how to use PKB to reduce your waiting lists, click here.

Prehab

Ensuring patients are in good physical condition for surgery is a key focus for all elective surgery teams. This helps to minimize the necessity of cancelling surgeries and also helps to streamline waiting lists. Find out how the Hywel Dda Health Board implemented a prehabilitation program using PKB, which assists patients in managing their wait time effectively and reduces the risk of pre-operative deterioration

Pre-op Assessment

By utilizing PKB care plans and questionnaires for pre-assessment, patients can complete assessments from the comfort of their homes, thereby shortening the duration of pre-assessment appointments, reducing appointment times and saving clinic and administation hours. This approach enhances the quality of shared information, facilitates review of patient-added data, and enables the use of PKB care plans for informed consent.

Enhanced Recovery

Enhanced recovery aims to get patients out of the hospital faster post-surgery. It includes a care plan for post-operative advice, support, a play to track symptoms, monitor measurements, and an escalation plan.

Click here for an example of Enhanced Recovery after surgery care plan

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital's heart failure team used PKB as part of a virtual ward. Patient-entered symptoms and measurements have grown by 200% in the last year. Secure messaging is replacing calls to the office, with usage across the Trust up 7% since launching the pilot projects. As well as being convenient for patients and clinicians, this ensures everything is structured correctly and recorded in one place. Click here to read the full case study.

Post-op Video Messaging

PKB is transforming post-operative follow-up care by using the PKB messaging feature to send personalised video messages to patients after surgery. To learn how to send post-op messages in PKB, click here.

Mr Duffy from Harrogate District NHS Foundation Trust recognised that patients often struggle to retain information after surgery. He recorded a video detailing the surgery, with post-operative advice and guidance, like post-op wound care or when patients can drive. He added the video to a PKB message, which can be accessed at the patient's convenience. This easy-to-replicate programme reduces unnecessary follow-up appointments and minimises pressure from unscheduled GP or emergency visits, freeing up valuable clinical time. Click here to read the full case.

Patient Initiated Follow-up

PKB is the ideal digital solution for Patient-Initiated Follow-up (PIFU), enabling patients to manage their follow-up appointments. PKB has a proven track record of empowering patients to manage their conditions, reducing unnecessary appointments, shortening waiting times, and facilitating virtual clinics. Key features supporting PIFU include symptom tracking, care planning, digital questionnaires with branching and scoring, test results, and patient-initiated messaging. These features collectively reduce appointments by up to 75%, decrease phone calls, and enhance patient control and self-management while freeing up clinic and admin time. Click here to learn more about how to use PKB in a PIFU pathway.

Non-Surgical Pathway Workflow

PKB can be effectively utilized in all non-surgery elective pathways by streamlining all the initiatives mentioned above, enabling pre-clinic assessment, symptom tracking, personalised care plans, secure patient-initiated messaging with attachments, appointment management, and data sharing, thereby improving the non-surgical pathway.