Exceeding expectations, together
Digital MSK pathway
The challenge
NHS capacity is overwhelmed; a situation we want to want to address by providing an innovative, accessible, online ‘game changing’ digital MSK pathway as delays in MSK diagnosis and care create catastrophic long-term health, wellbeing and biopsychosocial consequences, including:
- Physical deterioration/additional-co-morbidities/immobility/obesity/care-dependency
- Mental-Health-crisis/anxiety/depression/alcoholism/suicide
- Pain/drug/opioid-dependency (effecting 12.8%-of-population)
- Falls/trauma/premature-death
- Unemployment/poverty/benefit-reliance
- Family/carer/relationship-burden
After testing the market, Healthshare found there was a lack of clinically effective digital screening tools that could accurately manage referrals and avoid unnecessary and inappropriate patient escalation.
What we did
In 2019, taking learning from providing industry-leading Joint-Pain-Advisory-Clinics (JPAC) which assess, diagnose and rehabilitate up-to 20 NHS patient-users in condition-specific group-based rehabilitation classes. Our Innovation team, with support from our clinical team designed, developed and deployed a new digital platform that:
- Screens and automatically registers new patients via our Live Interactive Screening Assistant (LISA). Appropriate for 100 per cent of MSK patients, LISA ensures we get it right first time.
- Informs – those appropriate for a fully digital management get instant access to health literacy, psychological well-being and physical activity information, delivered via an online JPAC. JPAC empowers patients to make informed decisions about their ongoing care.
- Offers choice – Patients can choose to attend condition-specific online exercise classes, speak to a clinician online or receive a home exercise programme. Patients can also activate a transition into a face-to-face pathway.
Healthshare Digital was developed and deployed within our Hull MSK service and rolled out to all Healthshare services in early 2022.
The results
Healthshare digital is our digital front door that safely screens 100% of MSK patients into the appropriate level of care. Our solution can be deployed at pace and scale, making our digital pathway applicable for orthopaedic waiting list management as well as primary care and secondary care MSK settings.
The results from our Joint-Pain-Advisory-Clinics (JPAC) show that:
- Over 90% of patients benefit from this model of care
- Over 90% of patients would recommend it to friends and family