Patient appointment innovator DrDoctor is working with three new major NHS Trusts:
- Great Ormond Street Hospital, managing the Trust’s 150000 specialist outpatient appointments
- Whittington Health NHS Trust, covering outpatient appointments across the Trust
- University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, DrDoctor is piloting in Paediatrics to demonstrate an estimated 30% DNA rate reduction
DrDoctor supports hospitals with digital transformation. Its system allows patients to view, change and schedule outpatient appointments themselves, online, on smartphone or by conversational SMS.
DrDoctor chief executive Tom Whicher said “We are thrilled to support three more forward thinking Trusts in their journey to provide effective, digital first, patient centric services. All three implementations will deliver, in year cash savings, increase patient satisfaction and form a strong foundation for future digital transformation.”
DrDoctor reduces the number of missed and unscheduled appointments and allows patients to opt in to receiving paperless communications, releasing print and postage savings to Trusts. New analysis at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust has revealed that in one year the Trust has saved £2.2m, and patient satisfaction is 96 percent.
DrDoctor is supporting a major London children’s hospital’s strategic plan to become the leading paediatric centre in the world. DrDoctor was engaged in January 2017 to deploy its Appointment Management Platform. DrDoctor’s platform is a fundamental shift away from an inconsistent approach to appointment management. The platform will go-live in the summer of 2017. It will be available to all outpatients. It will allow the Trust to maximise and manage patient volume to best fit their capacity by automating large parts of the administrative workflow of managing patient bookings. The expected benefits of the deployment of DrDoctor at the hospital are improved DNA rate, clinic utilisation, consistency in messages, and contact rates with patients.
GOSH CCIO Shankar Sridharan said: “A real game-changer for the way we deliver care! Partnering with DrDoctor will allow us to skillfully use SMS to improve outpatient scheduling and patient experience”
The Whittington hospital chose to work with DrDoctor as they wanted a partner who could help them deliver improvement across their outpatient’s workstreams – not just providing technology but also providing support around data and improvement methodologies.
DrDoctor is one of NHS England’s NHS Innovation Accelerators, working with the Academic Health Science Networks.
DrDoctor was one of the 31 companies joining the first cohort of the year-long DigitalHealth.London Accelerator programme where it has benefitted from the support from NHS Navigators before applying to NHS Innovation Accelerator.
