NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA) company and patient appointment innovator DrDoctor is working with three new major NHS Trusts. 

They include:

  • A major children’s hospital, where the system is being configured in record time and will manage the Trust’s 150,000 specialist outpatient appointments
  • Whittington Health NHS Trust, covering all appointments across the Trust
  • University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, 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.

CCIO Shankar Sridharan said: “A real game-changer for the way we deliver care. Partnering with DrDoctor will allow us to skilfully 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 all their workstreams – not just providing technology but also providing support around data and improvement methodologies.

More information about DrDoctor and NIA Fellow, Tom Whicher, is available here.