iPLATO Healthcare, a UK leader in mHealth and Analytics, has launched a new feature which allows practices to completely automate the collection of patient data. For the 'QoF season', users of the company's premium service (iPLATO Enterprise or iPLATO Pro) will be able to automatically Read Code patient replies to text messaging campaigns back to the medical record. For example, when a patient replies 'NEVER' to a text message from their practice that requests an updated smoking status, the answer is automatically Read Coded on to the correct medical record - ready for inclusion in the calculation in the end of year QoF score.
"The concept of read coding requested patient responses to an SMS campaign and automatically transferring inbound responses directly onto the GP System is very useful," says Seb D'Souza, Practice Manager at The Woodberry Practice in Enfield. "We have used 'Campaign Read Codes' for seasonal flu immunisation and are looking to use it for smoking status validation in the coming months. The whole process is simple, efficient and a great time saver."
To gain QoF points GP practices across the UK are required to collect data from millions of patients every year to support primary prevention and service planning. For Smoking Cessation, thirty-six QoF points worth a total of £6,817 per practice are up for grabs in 13/14, if they validate smoking statuses for all adult patients every two years and more frequently for patients with chronic conditions. Less than half of the patient population actually attend GP appointments annually, therefore practices have traditionally relied on calling patients to reach the required percentage to qualify for QoF. Manual calling is expensive and can lead to the poor usage of time and skills of practice managers and administrators. By transferring data collection to mobile, this iPLATO innovation eliminates the need for outbound calling.
"We are excited to take the integration into underlying GP Systems to another level" says Tobias Alpsten, CEO of iPLATO Healthcare. "Following the success of automated appointment cancellations to improve patient access to GP services announced earlier in the year, we feel that the addition of inbound Read Coding will help practices get rid of time consuming administrational work and free up time to care for patients. In addition to automating the smoking status validation process, this service will also be able to streamline the process for practices to offer patients stop smoking support. Invitation to support services increases the available QoF points for smoking to 75, worth over £14,000 per practice. We are excited to use this as an opportunity to help practices improve their QoF performance within the iPLATO network."
Related news articles:
- iPLATO's Profile
About iPLATO
iPLATO Healthcare is British innovation company dedicated to mHealth and Analytics since 2006.
iPLATO's evidence based mobile health solutions have proven to improve patient access to healthcare, to enable powerful health promotion targeted at people at risk and to support people with long term conditions.
Serving millions of patients and thousands of healthcare professionals every day iPLATO has emerged as the leader in mobile health. Across this network the company is running campaigns to promote smoking cessation, weight loss, childhood immunisation and pandemic awareness as well as mobile disease management services for people with diabetes, hypertension, epilepsy and HIV.
iPLATO Healthcare's mission is to, in partnership with clinicians, help healthcare commissioners transform patient care through cloud based mHealth and Analytics.