The role of the community in battling the unprecedented current health crisis is vital. With more than 500,000 citizen volunteers signing up to support the NHS during this unprecedented time of need, the role of the public in is clear.
In fact, we have known for some time that the collective wisdom of public; friends, family and patients can inform and educate the healthcare system about the delivery of quality care, in a contemporaneous and insightful way. Alongside more traditional measures of quality, such as surveys, the patient voice can help us understand how care is being delivered at the frontline during the crisis, where pressure is greatest, patient feedback can identify cases of COVID-19, flagging spikes of activity as they occur, and also flagging potential issues to support the operational response currently underway. For example, the patient voice could identify regions where access to critical services is most needed, or bottlenecks in treatments and help inform the re-allocation of necessary human and material resources.
At PEP Health we are working tirelessly to scale and deploy our solution for the NHS. We can offer near real-time insights by hospital, region or nationally of what patients are reporting. At this time, the patient voice can help us as a nation is several ways:
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Learning from what patients are reporting
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Identifying which locations are struggling the most to meet patients’ needs
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Tracking sudden changes and variation across services
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Quickly identify where patients are struggling to access healthcare services the most
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Remotely track other essential services such as maternity and cancer services.
Once we flatten the curve the patient voice can help us return services back to normal by informing the prioritisation of services, benchmarking, and assisting in tracking the journey of services back to BAU.
Our vision is to transform healthcare services but today we can help in the battle against COVID-19. Collaboration to fight COVID-19 is essential. If you wish to get real-time direct patient feedback, collaborate, or even combine datasets to inform the broader fight against COVID-19 we would like to hear from you.
