HipTracker goals and objectives
Manoj Ramachandran and the Centre for Orthopaedics at St Bartholomew’s and The Royal London at Barts Health worked with an innovative software company, uMotif, to test a new smartphone app (HipTracker) for patients following hip surgery to self-track their symptoms, complete standard surveys and receive condition-specific content to help recovery for 3 months. This project was funded by a kind donation from Canary Wharf Contractors via Barts and The London Charity.
Components of the Hip tracker app were: a motif that help users track a combination of symptoms related to their condition (clinical- pain, noise-free, balance) and daily activities (non- clinical – sleep, mood, energy); medication reminders to help users follow their treatment plan; access to physiotherapy content developed by the Royal London physiotherapy team; a notes option to record key issues or progress following surgery; standard questionnaires and the option to visualise collected data.
This patient-public involvement project successfully deployed a test app to 22 patients. Feedback was gathered from patients and clinicians, which was generally positive and provided suggestions for future developments.
HipTracker won second place in the Vodafone Foundation Mobile for Good Europe Awards in 2013 and helped uMotif win the Cisco BIG (British Innovation Gateway) Award in 2013.
Impact on service delivery and patient experience
The grant supported the deployment and testing of new ways of engaging with patients, and between clinical teams.
Positive:
Usage of the app ranged from 0 days (registered but never used) to 191 days (still using app at end of trial period). The average number of days the app was used was 61 days. 5 users used the app for more than 84 days.
These figures demonstrate that the patient experience was positive. Most used the hip scores 3-4 times, which provides clinicians with more data than would otherwise be available through standard paper-based information at appointments. This indicates the potential to use remote score collection.
All users except one used the ‘motif’ data input interface to track their symptoms. The average number of days the motif was used was 35.73 days. This may indicate that patients are interested in recording subjective information on their recovery.
For improvement:
10 users stopped using the app in less than 84 days. This provides useful learning on how the app needs to provide higher engagement and value to patients to sustain use over an extended period of time.
Current version of the app doesn’t integrate with existing clinical IT systems or workflows, which is a barrier to adoption across departments. These IT issues can be overcome in future versions.
Lessons learnt:
An independent survey with a subset of users found that the app was easy to install, use and useful to self-manage symptoms. Most found the physio content useful and report that they would use the app outside of the current consultation period.
Future larger trials with more patients enrolled with a range of musculoskeletal conditions in adults and children are being planned.
Wider impact on human health
There is significant and increasing potential for digital technology to positively impact on human health, reduce healthcare costs, and improve service delivery. Encouraging patients to take greater control of their health and post-operative recovery could provide a wide range of benefits. In the trial group (young adult hip surgery), there is the potential for further development of the initial concept, to provide patients with – among other benefits - greater self-efficacy, increased data for shared decision making, and improved engagement with care team.
Further work and robust trials are required to provide efficacy and value of digital tools to assist patient self-management and patient-clinician shared decision-making. A number of trials have and are taking place in various patient groups, and there is potential to progress this initial project to a full trial to collect robust data.
While there is a large potential to improve delivery of healthcare, this and other projects highlight the importance of providing digital products to both patients and clinicians that deliver value to both parties. Robust evidence collection is critical, to prove the positive outcomes of new digital tools to support care.
This project has explored important initial aspects of the use of self-management software in orthopaedics. It has provided helpful insight into patient engagement and how data needs to be used as part of service delivery to enhance shared decision-making. The lessons learnt from this project will provide the foundation for further work that will make tangible impacts on improving patient outcomes, reducing healthcare costs and streamlining service delivery.
Manoj Ramachandran and the Centre for Orthopaedics at St Bartholomew’s and The Royal London at Barts Health worked with an innovative software company, uMotif, to test a new smartphone app (HipTracker) for patients following hip surgery to self-track their symptoms, complete standard surveys and receive condition-specific content to help recovery for 3 months. This project was funded by a kind donation from Canary Wharf Contractors via Barts and The London Charity.
Components of the Hip tracker app were: a motif that help users track a combination of symptoms related to their condition (clinical- pain, noise-free, balance) and daily activities (non- clinical – sleep, mood, energy); medication reminders to help users follow their treatment plan; access to physiotherapy content developed by the Royal London physiotherapy team; a notes option to record key issues or progress following surgery; standard questionnaires and the option to visualise collected data.
This patient-public involvement project successfully deployed a test app to 22 patients. Feedback was gathered from patients and clinicians, which was generally positive and provided suggestions for future developments.
HipTracker won second place in the Vodafone Foundation Mobile for Good Europe Awards in 2013 and helped uMotif win the Cisco BIG (British Innovation Gateway) Award in 2013.
Impact on service delivery and patient experience
The grant supported the deployment and testing of new ways of engaging with patients, and between clinical teams.
Positive:
Usage of the app ranged from 0 days (registered but never used) to 191 days (still using app at end of trial period). The average number of days the app was used was 61 days. 5 users used the app for more than 84 days.
These figures demonstrate that the patient experience was positive. Most used the hip scores 3-4 times, which provides clinicians with more data than would otherwise be available through standard paper-based information at appointments. This indicates the potential to use remote score collection.
All users except one used the ‘motif’ data input interface to track their symptoms. The average number of days the motif was used was 35.73 days. This may indicate that patients are interested in recording subjective information on their recovery.
For improvement:
10 users stopped using the app in less than 84 days. This provides useful learning on how the app needs to provide higher engagement and value to patients to sustain use over an extended period of time.
Current version of the app doesn’t integrate with existing clinical IT systems or workflows, which is a barrier to adoption across departments. These IT issues can be overcome in future versions.
Lessons learnt:
An independent survey with a subset of users found that the app was easy to install, use and useful to self-manage symptoms. Most found the physio content useful and report that they would use the app outside of the current consultation period.
Future larger trials with more patients enrolled with a range of musculoskeletal conditions in adults and children are being planned.
Wider impact on human health
There is significant and increasing potential for digital technology to positively impact on human health, reduce healthcare costs, and improve service delivery. Encouraging patients to take greater control of their health and post-operative recovery could provide a wide range of benefits. In the trial group (young adult hip surgery), there is the potential for further development of the initial concept, to provide patients with – among other benefits - greater self-efficacy, increased data for shared decision making, and improved engagement with care team.
Further work and robust trials are required to provide efficacy and value of digital tools to assist patient self-management and patient-clinician shared decision-making. A number of trials have and are taking place in various patient groups, and there is potential to progress this initial project to a full trial to collect robust data.
While there is a large potential to improve delivery of healthcare, this and other projects highlight the importance of providing digital products to both patients and clinicians that deliver value to both parties. Robust evidence collection is critical, to prove the positive outcomes of new digital tools to support care.
This project has explored important initial aspects of the use of self-management software in orthopaedics. It has provided helpful insight into patient engagement and how data needs to be used as part of service delivery to enhance shared decision-making. The lessons learnt from this project will provide the foundation for further work that will make tangible impacts on improving patient outcomes, reducing healthcare costs and streamlining service delivery.