Case study: University Hospitals of Leicester
Reduce unnecessary follow ups and direct patient care towards those who most urgently need it with Patient Initiated Follow Up (PIFU)
University Hospitals of Leicester (UHL) successfully relaunched their PIFU initiative to hit the 2022/2023 national operational planning guidance target of moving or discharging 5% of outpatient attendances to PIFU pathways.
PIFU puts patients in control of their care, allowing them to make contact with services when they need help, rather than being scheduled for a regular appointment they might not require.
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Impact at a glance:
Moving 4.3% of outpatient attendance to PIFU pathways compared to 1.9% prior to their PIFU relaunch
Average monthly moves to PIFU pathways increased by up to 50% in Trauma and Orthopaedics
Of the ~19K patients who have been sent digital PIFU links, 7.7% submitted medical queries and 4% submitted admin queries
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Meeting the increasing demands on healthcare teams
UHL knew that the traditional model of managing PIFU, where patients were required to ring a phone number if they needed to get in touch, was insufficient to deal with the expected increase in PIFU activity as a result of the relaunch. Patients already struggled to get through to their healthcare teams by phone and were invited to leave a voicemail when they couldn’t speak to a member of the team.
Receiving patient requests via online is quicker than phone calls. Calls are difficult to answer if we’re busy, and also means there’s no record of the request.
Dermatology Clinic Coordinator
With the relaunch of the PIFU initiative, UHL was able to...
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improve patients’ access to their healthcare teams.
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allow clinicians to identify patients with more urgent queries so they can be seen quicker.
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manage a drop in call volumes and a more efficient process of triaging submission.
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To support admin and clinical teams in managing their PIFU patients, UHL took the decision to provide a digital solution via Accurx.
The process worked as follows: Patients who were given a PIFU outcome were immediately sent a digital PIFU contact link via text message.
Patients could click on the link at any time of the day during their PIFU pathway to submit a query or request an appointment by answering a series of short questions.
The requests are split into admin and medical requests, enabling teams to sort requests and responsibility easily. The administrative teams can often deal with the administrative requests without the need for an appointment, and help clinicians review, triage and respond to medical requests online.
The requests are split into admin and medical requests, enabling teams to sort requests and responsibility easily. The administrative teams can often deal with the administrative requests without the need for an appointment, and help clinicians review, triage and respond to medical requests online.
These online requests are much easier and quicker to respond to than phone calls.
Dermatology Admin Manager
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