A Women's Health Physiotherapy team (WHPT) have improved their service using digital self-referral

1.7%

DNA rate

179

referrals completed and triaged

72.8%

of patients triaged to video package, went on to self-manage their care

Challenge

Historically, antenatal women accessed Women's Health Physiotherapy (WHPT) via a paper referral from either a midwife, GP or Obstetric Consultant. The problem with this manual referral was that patients were not always seen in a timely manner.

Approach

WHPT wanted to test the feasibility of implementing a digital self-referral pathway, with the intention to improve women's accessibility to WHPT, monitor the DNA rate and improve quality of data on the referral. MyPathway allows patients to register and then complete a questionnaire which provides the WHPT with the relevant information about the patient’s condition. The WHPT will then 'assign' the type of appointment needed. The patient will be offered either a video package, replicating the antenatal group session (which currently is not running due to Covid-19 restrictions) or a 60-minute face to face appointment. Patients also have access to resources regarding pregnancy related conditions within the app.

Results

After 4 months of "live" data:

  • 179 referrals completed and triaged
  • 4.5% triaged to telephone consultation
    • of which 87.5% attended
  • 45.2% triaged to video package
    • following this 72.8% self-managed
    • 27.2% booked a 30 minute 1:1 follow up
    • 1.2% DNA rate
  • 50.3% triaged to 1:1 those of which 74% were classified as urgent
    • 87.8% attended their appointment
    • 2.2% DNA rate
    • 7.8% did not opt-in to book appointment

What happened next

Moving forward with MyPathway, the WHPT want to gain more feedback from their patients to further improve the service as well as reintroduce the group sessions that is currently on hold due to Covid-19 restrictions. Now that the team have the technology in place, there is also the possibility of extending this pathway to post-natal women.