In our latest interview we spoke with Dr Mike Walton, a GP in St Albans to discuss how the Harvey Group Practice has benefited from a patient communication solution, AccuRx.
Can you tell me a bit about yourself?
I’m a GP in St Albans, Hertfordshire and have been for over 20 years. As well as being a GP, I am also one of the trustees and committee members of the EMIS National User Group.
I have always been an enthusiast for using technology and IT solutions in order to improve patient services and patient care. If technology is implemented well, I believe it can make a big difference in what we provide to our patients. Over the years, I’ve had a history of trying out new products associated with EMIS, including 3rd party products.
Can you tell me about AccuRx?
It is a simple, nimble, easy to use application that integrates directly with EMIS, and now also with TPP SystmOne, which between them cover 95% + of UK GP practices.
Across EMIS they developed a very simple application (desktop application), that can interface and integrate directly with the EMIS system through the API. It can talk to and easily send a text message when in an EMIS patient record.
The solution automatically enters the patient’s demographic details, including phone number, and it checks if the patient has opted out of SMS texting. If that code is not there, it will automatically send a text to the patient.
There is a whole suite of pre-populated templates to use, and the practice can also create their own. We have created a whole host so it only takes 2 or 3 clicks to send a message.
There is also an interface with NHS Choices, so that you can easily send a text with a link to additional information; for example, if a patient comes in with glandular fever, I can send him/her a text on their way out of the consultation, with a link to an article about glandular fever. It is very easy to make available to all in an organisation and very user friendly, in fact to the end user (us), is entirely free; there is no charge to the practice or the NHS for the standard core product of sending texts.
For the more advanced product which allows one to send a sequence of texts, for example, a patient has on-going medical problems and asks for us to prompt him/her to keep him on track with say his diet, we can send the patient periodic texts to have him/her send back their weight. This creates a motivational method of keeping the patient on track with their goals.
If the organisation wishes to use the program on a larger level, AccuRx asks to have a conversation with the CCG so that their SMS messages are sent from the CCG account to absorb the cost of sending hundreds of messages per day to many different patients. FLOREY is another fantastic service of AccuRx, a free of charge bolt-on which can send a default text to a patient, for asthma for example, with a form attached so that the patient can fill out the form and send it back to us, which is then input onto our system automatically.
What are the benefits of Florey, AccuRx’s new feature for gathering QOF results?
It is utilising modern technology, which has been accepted by patients, meaning we can reach patients at any time; patients, just like ourselves, are busy people and the program fits in with the NHS Digital First strategy.
Patients really seem to like it and we get a very good response rate on the Florey asthma method; we get 7/10 patients responding to that particular method. One can look at ones practice activity, so can look at internal reports to see, for example, who in ones organisation is using AccuRx and in what way – total number of texts sent out and various other end-user data.
It is possible to audit and track all SMS and whether they have been delivered, and there is a process in development where the system will send back a ‘non-delivery’ receipt to the organisation. It is a simple, nimble solution which does not send back masses of analytical data and does exactly what it says on the tin and is easy to use. The company is very keen on receiving feedback from end-users to improve their software.
How is AccuRx different?
The beauty of AccuRx is that if I send a text to a patient, it is written back into the clinical record, back into the consultation, for me and everyone to see, so you can see the exact wording of the text and with the timestamp it was sent. The patient can also see that if they have online access.
This morning, I have just browsed through 250 EPS prescriptions, every time an EMIS pop-up occurs, I can click immediately in the AccuRx toolbar, send a text and this saves a great deal of time.
AccuRx has made sure that Information Governance is really simple for practices. They have all the latest IG accreditation (Cyber Essentials Plus; NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit) but have designed the IG so that a practice can download the software and start using it themselves within minutes.
AccuRx is also aware of the practices’ obligations under GDPR to perform a DPIA if adopting a new methodology such as AccuRx. They provide a template DPIA which a practice can adopt or edit at Will in order to accord to their DPIA requirements.
What advice would you give to a practice who was about to implement AccuRx?
I would start working with the clinicians as this is a clinical tool to allow the doctor or nurse to send a message when they need to. Focus on clinicians first and get on board the most enthusiastic clinicians and also the least enthusiastic clinician; if you can get on board the least enthusiastic clinician and show them how easy it is, then it will actually carry everyone along – all journeys travelledneed to be at the rate of the slowest member.
Once you have the clinicians on board and using it, you can open it up to the rest of the team. It is well over 50% of practices using EMIS are using AccuRx.
