North West London chooses ICS DrDoctor Portal

The North West London Integrated Care System has selected doDoctor to deliver its patient portal to help tackle waiting list backlogs in the area and boost patient engagement.

The new system will help redistribute capacity across the Integrated Care System (ICS) by combining appointments available across all four of its trusts. Canceled appointments may be reassigned to other patients within ICS with 24 hours’ notice. Capacity will be released and redistributed throughout the ICS helping to tackle the backlog not only at one trust level but across North West London.

The DrDoctor solution will standardize the way it engages with its patients across Chelsea and Westminster Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

Patients will benefit from the new portal, as it will allow them to manage appointments irrespective of their location, enabling them to request, book, reschedule and cancel slots digitally.

In addition, the portal will validate waiting lists through tools such as digital Patient-Initiated Follow-up (PIFU) and clinical questionnaires.

Robbie Kline, Chief Information Officer, Hillingdon Hospitals and London North West, said: “ICS have very specific needs when it comes to delivering services to patients, which focuses on harmonizing care experiences across ICS. has been encouraged by the response, particularly patient uptake and how well the system interoperates with other technologies, such as the Kerner EPR.

“By giving patients the option to engage and request a convenient slot, they are more likely to turn up. This helps us to make the best use of our capacity by reducing no-attend (DNA) rates, which means This means that we can plan our workforce more effectively even in less time.

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has been using the DrDoctor portal since 2019 and over 75% of its patients prefer to interact through it. The Trust has been able to significantly reduce the burden on the administration teams for manual tasks, as well as reduce the waiting list by 30%.

Based on the use of the portal in Chelsea and Westminster, it is expected that the ability to stratify waiting lists with text message questionnaires will reduce waiting lists by up to 35% across ICS.

The other three trusts in ICS are expected to go live with the portal by the end of 2024.

Tom Where, chief executive of doDoctor, said: “We hope this project can be used as a blueprint for other ICs, particularly non-specialist trusts considering that patient portals When there is a joint approach to care coordination, the benefits to patients and clinicians will have a transformative effect.