32 GP practices in Torbay and South Devon have been funded by their CCG to access to Health and Care Videos Primary Care Video Library for a year to see if using video can help relieve demands on staff and waiting times.The library contains over 250 patient information videos across a range of specialist areas such as contraception, diabetes, falls prevention, inhaler use and many more.
One of the participants in the trial, Torquay’s Chelston Hall Surgery, have been actively sharing the videos with their patients and have already seen its implementation actively reduce demands on the surgery.
Practice Manager, Mark Thomas, who is also chair of the South Devon and Torbay Practice Managers group, added a simple ‘Self-care videos’ button onto their practice website and has used Patient Chase to send a series of condition related text messages containing links to the relevant videos. What followed was an immediate spike in the viewing figures for these specific pages, a 20% uptake from the patients sent the text. ‘It works’ said Mark, ‘condition specific texts seem to be the way forward’ ‘I am a convert and I believe this an additional and beneficial service to help patients manage and understand their conditions’ says Mark Thomas.
Chelston Hall Surgery now has a programme of patient texts for other chronic disease areas that they will continue to send to specific patient groups in the coming months. And it doesn’t end there. Practices are also signposting and sharing the videos via email, pre-printed cards and leaflets containing QR codes and links, and showing them on the TV screens in waiting rooms.
The videos are helping practice teams remove the need for some patient appointments by encouraging patients to self-manage their conditions, and reducing the time within others as the patient arrives better informed having already watch a video on their condition. If you want to find out more about using one of Health and Care Video’s video libraries please contact us to take a look at our demo site and discuss implementation including personalisation options.
www.healthandcarevideos.com [email protected] 01626 833937