Background: around three years ago, Unboxed began working with Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust to work out where we might add value to their services for patients. Now, three years later we have created a Remote Monitoring platform, where patients with rheumatoid arthritis are sent monthly reminders to fill in information on how they’re feeling. The Trust monitors this to help patients manage their condition.
Find out more about the project here:
The role of remote monitoring in the future of the NHS
This current piece of work is to extend the Remote Monitoring platform so that other types of Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) can be put on the system. This way, more patients can be remotely monitored, not just those with rheumatoid arthritis.
What we did this sprint:
- User research with patients currently on the platform. We wanted to understand their experience using the current system, and what frustrations and barriers they had. The feedback was mostly positive, with patients feeling valued and that the service was easy to use. Some were slightly unclear on whether their data was being looked at. With these insights, we developed some ideas on how we could improve the current service, and have been looking into doing further improvements to the content.
- Prototyping the newer features, specifically having multiple PROMs on the system. We talked to the current coordinator of the system and worked out what they would like to see happen. We then mocked up some prototypes to test further, and to have as visual aids for the developers and discussion prompts.
- Developing the new database structure. Currently the database is based on the fact that there is only one type of PROM, so we needed to add flexibility for all the other types that will be added. This has involved mapping it out on whiteboards, database architecture discussions, and finally writing some code. We hope this big chunk of work will be finished very soon!
Questions that we have:
- The plan is to have all patients in the Rheumatology department on the system, what will this look like for someone having to monitor it?
- How might we extend it to other hospitals?
What we plan to do next sprint:
- User research with patients who are less engaged, so we can work out how we might amend the platform to encourage them to use it
- Once the database work is done, we can begin adding new features such as a different flagging system for PROMs with a higher score than normal.