myGP \ Triaging
The NHS is losing millions of GBP on unnecessary GP appointments every year. I worked on a revolutionary triaging flow in the myGP appointment booking process that reduced unnecessary appointments by 20% in our trial.
UI.UX
Zsolt Simon
Role:
Product Designer
Date:
2017
A better way of booking appointments
According to a study by the Primary Care Foundation 27% of Gp appointments are avoidable. Source: NHS
Most of the potential reasons for avoidable appointments are stemming from the patient not having the right information at the right time. iPlato was in a position to tackle this at the heard of the problem, as they control the booking flow for GP appointments in our myGP app.
Is your condition mild or non-urgent? A pharmacist could help you! Have you been sick at home missing work? You don’t need a sick note unless it has been more than 7 days!
Our research showed there are a few crucial components to correctly booked appointment. The patient needs to know that they are heard and that they are seeking the right care at the right time and the GP Practice needs to know if the patient should be seen by a Doctor, Nurse or referred to a cheaper alternative like a pharmacist.
For this we took a Questions and Answers type approach that flows in different directions depending on the user's choice. The pivotal question being the Appointment reason. I conducted a thorough analysis of thousands of anonymised appointment reason texts to come up with a smart signposting system based on regular expressions. We then offered the users options that were relevant.
A really good example is a Sick note. Users didn't know that by law they weren't required to present one at work if they've been sick for less than 7 days. We could inform them about this if they mentioned sick leave or sick notes.
Results
The initial trial of the signposting engine with Aintree Park Practice showed that 20% of the patients who have been presented a signpost have diverted to using one of the signposted solution rather than a GP appointment.
If the system were fully deployed in Liverpool alone it would mean a £1 m cost saving to the NHS by avoiding unnecessary GP appointments.
