Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust (HDFT) has won two major awards at the Health Tech News Awards.
Harrogate's NHS scoops two awards for technology innovation
Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust (HDFT) has won two Health Tech News Now Awards.
The prestigious HTN Now Awards celebrate innovations, teams and health tech suppliers that are having an impact on health and care services.
And the Trust in Harrogate received the Innovation in Health and Care Award and was named Overall Winner of the HTN Now Awards for its Harrogate Post Procedure Patient Innovation (HAPPI) Project.
The ambition of the innovative HAPPI Project is to change the culture of how surgeons communicate with patients after day case surgery, by sending a personalised video message on the day of their procedure.
Dr Jacqueline Andrews, Executive Medical Director at HDFT said:
HAPPI Project“I would like to congratulate everyone who has worked on this project. HAPPI is helping us to further improve on the healthcare we are able to provide for our patients by providing them with information on their treatment in an easily accessible way.
"By reducing the number of appointments required for individuals, we can offer these to other people requiring our help, which will ultimately reduce waiting times for people to be seen.
“We are delighted to announce we will be opening our new Healthcare Innovation Hub at St James Business Park in Knaresborough this spring and as a result will be able to work on even more innovative ideas to improve healthcare.”
The anxiety and stress a patient can experience during an admission to hospital means patients rarely remember what has been told to them after any surgical procedure.
Research has demonstrated that up to 80 percent of the medical information given is forgotten immediately.
Before the introduction of the personalised video messages, 75 percent of patients who underwent a day surgery procedure felt they needed a further appointment to help clarify the information they had been given on their treatment.
This initiative is helping to reduce the number of follow up outpatient appointments that are required. In the initial study only 15 percent of patients who received a personalised video message felt they needed a follow-up appointment.
The personalised video messages were first introduced for patients undergoing arthroscopic surgery of the knees.
Following the success of the initiative, it has now been expanded to include patients undergoing hand surgery, gynaecology, and shoulder surgery.
The solution is set to be expanded across other specialties in the future. HDFT is looking at how the benefits can be shared with other NHS Trusts.
Mr David Duffy, Consultant in Trauma and Orthopaedics, who led the project said:
“This is a simple, hugely effective, and inexpensive solution to a genuine problem all worldwide healthcare providers experience.
"Expecting a patient to remember details of surgery, recovery and important milestones after they have been anaesthetised or sedated is just not realistic. But the medical profession has never challenged this model.
“Providing a simple video message that can be viewed multiple times by patients or carers provides clarity and improves the quality of healthcare delivered. The potential benefits of this initiative are enormous when scaled across the NHS with minimal implementation cost.
“I am delighted the work of the project team has been recognised with these awards. Whilst the process looks so simple and elegant, the effort to make this work has been enormous.
"We are now helping other hospitals embrace this concept with Harrogate having developed a blueprint to embed this into clinical practice.”
HDFT are keen to hear about innovative ideas on how technology can be used to help improve healthcare services in the future and can be contacted by emailing hdft.innovation@nhs.net
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