Project Name: Digital Solution - Penguin Patient Management System – Neurology – Service Development

Project Summary:

Provide and implement the Penguin remote monitoring solution in the Neurology Service to assist both in the ongoing monitoring and care of disease management, and health to improve access and experience of care.

In this project, Cievert (on behalf of Novartis), will complete the configuration of a bespoke clinical templates by determining the clinical data to be collected for Service Development. Following configuration, the Penguin system will then be implemented within the Trust’s system.

Implementation of the solution in the NHS aims to;

  • Empower patients to own their disease through the ability to track their disease through validated Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMS) and clinician touchpoints over time;
  • Flag to clinicians patients who report outcome measures that are outside of the clinically-determined tolerance levels, or whose scores are on a consistent downward trend.  These real-time rapid alerts of patients not achieving optimal outcomes will enable their care to be reviewed and optimised more quickly than if the patient had to wait for a scheduled appointment;
  • Support the move to a needs-based care model, keeping well-managed patients with minimal disease impact out of secondary care and managed through virtual consultations, recycling capacity to manage those patients who are not achieving optimal outcomes;
  • Support clinicians to make a confident and informed decision about a patient’s treatment plan, virtually or face to face, based on patient reported outcomes; and
  • Enable clinicians to prioritise new patient referrals and the backlog of patients caused by unanticipated workload e.g. COVID-19, based on assessment of patient needs using the validated PROMs.

The expected outcomes from this project (from baseline to 12 months) will be as follows:

  • Improvements in PROMs and disease assessment scores measured at baseline and after every interaction or at regular intervals (as determined by the clinician) with the platform up to 12 months
  • Improvements in patient experience scores measured at regular intervals (as determined by the clinician) with the platform up to 12 months
  • Improvement in clinician experience scores measured at regular intervals up to 12 months
  • Faster access to emergency appointments for patients not achieving optimal outcomes measured by PROMs at baseline and up to 12 months
  • Reduction in DNAs measured at baseline and up to 12 months
  • Reduced backlog of patients waiting for treatment reviews measured at baseline and up to 12 months
  • Maintains NHS data security standards with no data breaches

Planned Milestones:

  • Project kick-off meeting
  • Preliminary Paperwork/Sign off
  • PDS IT interfacing work completed
  • Participant Mapping
  • Local Training & Configuration of Local Test Platform
  • Live System Set-up
  • Start of 12-month license, hosting and support
  • Business Case, Write-Up and Project Close

Expected Benefits:

  • Empower patients to own their disease through provision of educational resources and ability to track progress through validated PROMs and clinician touchpoints over time.
  • Better management of disease via clinician’s specifications to the Penguin software solution (including the clinical template).
  • A digital platform to record PROMs at home between appointments, freeing up appointment time to discuss results and patient health factors identified via the PROM questionnaires.
  • Reducing the number of hospital appointments for patients who are feeling well and achieving optimal outcomes – saving patients time, reducing time off work and the associated financial outlay with travel to hospital appointments.
  • Ability to access clinical data, including PROMs, for individual patients in one digital platform.
  • Flagging to clinicians and patients who report outcome measures that are outside of the clinically determined tolerance levels, or whose scores are on a consistent downward trend.  These real-time rapid alerts of patients not achieving optimal outcomes will enable their care to be reviewed and optimised more quickly than if the patient had to wait for a scheduled appointment.
  • Support the Trust to move to a needs-based care model, keeping well-managed patients with minimal disease impact out of secondary care and managed through virtual consultations at reduced frequency, recycling capacity to manage those patients who are not achieving optimal outcomes or who are on waiting lists for initial review.
  • Support clinicians to make a confident and informed decision about a patient’s treatment plan, virtually or face to face, based on patient outcomes.
  • Enabling clinicians to prioritise new patient referrals and the backlog of patients caused by COVID-19 based on assessment of patient need using the validated PROMs
  • Increased opportunities for digital innovation and engagement across the Trust, aligning to the Novartis strategic priority: driving the use of data and going digital.
  • Baseline, non-identifiable, aggregated patient data in baseline reports.
  • Improved reputation through joint working with the Trust to collect PROMs via a robust online system.
  • Aligns with Novartis focus of innovating to address the most significant unmet needs of patients in the UK.

Start Date & Duration: Dec 2022 – 18 Months

UK2212014236 

Project Name: Digital Solution - Penguin Patient Management System – Neurology – Service Development

Partner Organisation(s): Northern Care Alliance Foundation Trust

Completion Date: Dec-2023

Outcome Summary:

Improved assessment and waiting times of Neurology patients for the headache clinic. 

Key Project Outcomes Data:

10 patients were added to the system over the year. However, from the introduction of the software, a research project has been started and a further adaptation of the headache questionnaire will allow a cohort of patients to be monitored more closely. This research project is independent of Novartis support. 

Outcomes:

The original outcomes for this project (below) are hard to measure in a meaningful way with such a small number of patients (n:10) having filled out the questionnaire. The outcomes to this project are still hypothetical, as not enough patients have been added to the system, however this project has resulted in the creation of a further project with MS patients and the headache questionnaire as a research project, which will be carried out under a contract extension between Northern Care Alliance Foundation Trust and Evergreen Life, independently of Novartis, as the Novartis support has now ceased.

  • Improvements in PROMs and disease assessment scores measured with the platform up to 12 months 
    • Patient numbers too low to demonstrate this. 
  • Improvements in patient experience scores measured with the platform up to 12 months
    • Patient numbers too low to demonstrate this. 
  • Improvement in clinician experience scores measured at regular intervals up to 12 months 
    • Patient numbers too low to demonstrate this.
  • Faster access to emergency appointments for patients not achieving optimal outcomes measured by PROMs at baseline and up to 12 months
    • Patient numbers too low to demonstrate this.
  • Reduction in DNAs measured at baseline and up to 12 months
    • Patient numbers too low to demonstrate this.
  • Reduced backlog of patients waiting for treatment reviews measured at baseline and up to 12 months
    • Patient numbers too low to demonstrate this
  • Maintains NHS data security standards with no data breaches
    • No data breaches recorded. 

Conclusion:

Unfortunately, in the 12 months of this project, we did not see the Neuro department making full use of the ePROMs system; however they did still see the benefit and when the project concluded there were plans, independent of Novartis support, to continue to work with Evergreen further to implement the ePROMs and carry out their analysis to support a business case for the wider trust. 

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