Lenus Health technology wins HSJ Award with NHS Scotland partners’ Digitising Patient Pathways Initiative
NHS Forth Valley, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Grampian, the Modernising Patient Pathways Programme (Centre for Sustainable Delivery), NHS National Services Scotland and NHS Education for Scotland submitted the joint entry.
The HSJ Awards are an annual national event held to shine a light on UK healthcare excellence. Last night’s event was the 41st HSJ Awards with the ceremony held at Evolution, in Battersea, London. From front-line staff to senior leaders, the more than 1,000 attendees represent life-changing work by sharing best practice, improving patient outcomes, and being innovators of better service.
The 136 judges selected from across the NHS and wider healthcare sector contributed their valuable time and effort to review hundreds of entries, under strict criteria, and attributed scores in a transparent 2-stage process in pursuit of the best of UK healthcare.
By the end of the evening, 23 winning teams of the 204 finalists were recognised with Lenus Health’s appointments service victorious in the ‘Digitising Patient Pathways Initiative’ (read more here). The collaborative entry was made by NHS Forth Valley, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Grampian, the Modernising Patient Pathways Programme (Centre for Sustainable Delivery), NHS National Services Scotland and NHS Education for Scotland to share their successful implementation of a ‘Digital Dermatology Assessment – An alternative to Face-to-Face Consultations: Development, Expansion and Spread During Covid-19’.
The digital pathway entry utilising Lenus Health’s technology highlighted the efficiency of the asynchronous digital appointment model versus a traditional analogue (video or face-to-face consultation) model, enabling 23% more clinical time, and high patient-satisfaction, with 82% of respondents reporting ease-of-use. These results were published in the British Journal of Dermatology article ‘Keeping the lights on: Virtual asynchronous consultations during the COVID-19 pandemic’ by Muthiah S, et al.
The winning entry also noted the asynchronous model developed by Lenus delivers greater flexibility to patients, with more time freed up to meet rising demands and for patients in need of traditional consultation, a reduced carbon-footprint and cost of locums. The health boards went on to estimate the opportunity for NHS Scotland to migrate 25% of routine return appointments to the Lenus service model noting the thousands of clinical hours that could be saved in other specialty services, including ophthalmology, orthopaedics, gastroenterology, rheumatology and respiratory medicine.
“Congratulations again to our NHS Scotland partners on this immense achievement. We would also like to recognise the wider community for all the hard and important work being done toward this common goal of pathway transformation. It is the understanding that digitally-supported pathways are not about remote care but rather enabling more and better care that will lead us to a thriving UK health and care network,” said Paul McGinness, Lenus Health co-founder and CEO.
Contact us to learn more about our award-winning digital appointments service.