HSJ Patient Safety Awards 2017: Cancer Care

Patient facing digital health services have enormous potential to improve patient safety, service quality, user experience and productivity.

In a project using the Vitrucare platform, teams at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals Trust are able to offer highly patient focused services that allow people receiving chemotherapy to self monitor for important side effects of treatment, receive relevant multimedia information and, when necessary be in immediate contact with the local 24/7 Care Coordination Centre telephone ‘hotline’.

The approach has led to the appropriate avoidance of unplanned admission to hospital and high levels of patient satisfaction.

The judges felt that the winning team was able to demonstrate how using digital technology, individual patient knowledge and clinical time, it is possible to achieve significant improvement in outcomes.