DrDoctor expands its service across three NHS trusts

London-based patient appointment company DrDoctor has secured new contracts with three major NHS trusts.

Its service allows patients to view, change and schedule outpatient appointments themselves, online, on smartphone or by conversational SMS.

DrDoctor chief executive Tom Whicher said they’re thrilled to support Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust, Whittington Health NHS Trust and University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust in their journey to provide effective, digital first, patient centric services.

“The three implementations will deliver, in year cash savings, increase patient satisfaction and form a strong foundation for future digital transformation”, Whicher said.

“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.”

DrDoctor was engaged in January 2017 to deploy London children’s hospital – Great Ormond Street – with its Appointment Management Platform.

It is due to go live in one month and will be available to all outpatients, allowing 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, Whicher said.

He said the expected benefits of the service at the children’s hospital is to improve its patient no show rate, clinic utilisation, consistency in messages, and contact rates with patients.

The service is currently implemented at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust where Whicher revealed that in one year, it has saved £2.2 million due to the service, with patient satisfaction at 96%.

It is also implemented at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board and NHS Frimley Health Foundation Trust. Great Ormond Street Hospital CCIO Shankar Sridharan said it will be “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.”

Whicher said the Whittington hospital chose to work with DrDoctor to help them deliver improvement across all their workstreams – not just providing technology but also providing support around data and improvement methodologies.

DrDoctor is one of NHS England’s NHS Innovation Accelerators, working withthe Academic Health Science Networks.

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Three new NHS contracts:

• Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust, managing the trust’s 150,000 specialist outpatient appointments – to be deployed in on month
  
• Whittington Health NHS Trust, covering all appointments across the trust – to be deployed in six weeks
• University Hospital SouthamptonNHS Foundation Trust, DrDoctor is piloting in Paediatrics to demonstrate an estimated 30% DNA rate reduction – to be deployed end of July

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