Use of Patients Know Best as a tool to improve patient engagement and deliver a digital dietetics service to kidney patients

ABSTRACT

Patient initiated follow up is being supported by NHS England and NHS Improvement1 to offer flexibility with follow up care and promote self-management and enable shared decision making. As a means of undertaking this, citizen held health records via web passed portals have become a new feature within clinical services, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. It has been discussed elsewhere2 what benefits may be gained from using digital web based portals to improve patient engagement and self-management by patients with kidney disease. As a team of kidney dietitians, the citizen health held record known as Patients Know Best (PKB) was adopted as the portal of choice for use with patients as a means of patient initiated follow up and service improvement. A six month pilot phase was undertaken between September 2020 - March 2021 in which willing and interested patients had the opportunity to register on to the Kidney Dietitians’ PKB page. Upon registering the patients were able to use a two way message function which means direct access to their kidney dietitian, a full library of information ranging from YouTube tutorials, departmental information leaflets, links to charity websites, free cook books available on the internet and links to other platforms such as Humber Health Apps and Patient View. Dietitians had the ability to electronically undertake nutritional screening, bowel assessment questionnaires using PKB and could also send 24hr food recalls and 5 day food diaries (known as consultations) for completion ahead of booked appointments via telephone or video. PKB is also being used as a teaching aide during face to face and remote consultations to promote patient empowerment and self-care3. Data from the pilot phase showed that 49 patients had registered with the platform. In terms of instant messaging, 43% of messages had been instigated by the patient. Approximately 90% of messages received by the dietitians were read and responded to with 24 hours. Data also revealed that 100% of consultations initiated by the dietitian had also been completed within 24 hours enabling timely intervention. Due to the success of the pilot phase, a mail shot has now been sent to all dialysis patients (circa 400) offering them the opportunity to register with the Kidney Dietitians PKB site and a further consultation has been designed and added to PKB for audit data collection purposes. References 1. ‘Patient initiated follow up Giving patients greater control over their hospital follow up care’ Last accessed fromhttps//www.england.nhs.uk/outpatient-transformation-programme/patient-initiated-follow-up-giving-patients-greater-control-over-their-hospital-follow-up-care/ 02.07.2021 2. The role of patient portals in enhancing self-care in patients with renal conditions (2020) Hazara, A. M., Durrans, K., Bhandari, S. Clinical Kidney Journal;Vol 13;1-7. 3. ‘The ‘future is bright’ for patients of the kidney dietetics service’ Patients Know Best last accessed from on 02.07.2021