Patients Know Best embarks on its first German deployment
Saying goodbye to paper records
Patients Know Best halves clinic time for HIV patients
Say hello to a new member of the PKB team

Patients Know Best embarks on its first German deployment
Tübingen University Hospital has become the first hospital in Germany to roll out Patients Know Best to patients. Germany is the fourth European country to use PKB after Ireland, the Netherlands and the UK (PKB’s home).

Initially a pilot programme, Tübingen’s pediatric gastroenterology unit will be using Patients Know Best to help families and children with intestinal failure better manage their conditions.
Read the full details about the feature here

Saying goodbye to paperless records
In this article, chief clinical information officer at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust Dr Sanjay Gautama writes about how his organisation is overcoming the challenge of making data and personal medical information available to individual patients and clinicians. He said: 

“In the past, technology has not been mature enough to cope with the challenges of taking data from multiple sources and allowing it to be shared through a secure intranet system, so we have tended to silo information where it can’t easily be accessed or shared. That fortunately is changing. We decided to use G-Cloud Services, which is UK Public sector cloud provider and sign up with their Patients Know Best service. This is designed for use for all health and social care organisations across an entire region to provide integrated care and patient access to information.”

Read the full article here.

Patients Know Best halves clinic time for HIV patients
Derriford Hospital in Plymouth and North Manchester General are two of the UK’s leading centres of excellence for the treatment of HIV. 

Both hospitals are now rolling out Patients Know Best to their cohort of HIV patients – something that according to both hospitals could reduce the amount of time their patients must spend in clinic by up to half - a major step forward in patient care. 
 
Project lead at Derriford, project sexual health and HIV consultant Dr Zoe Warwick said:
 
“If you’re diagnosed early and are on antiretroviral therapy then people with HIV can have a normal life expectancy. If you just want to get on with your life and have minimal contact with us then PKB allows this. It means the string can be let out a little. Patients know they can always contact us and we know they are self managing their condition well – that’s quite transformative to their care.”

HIV specialist clinician Dr Andrew Ustianowski from North Manchester’s Regional Infectious Disease Unit said:

“I need to feel 100% confident that patients know they have a highly secure route of access and patients must feel sure they can always message me and get a response – PKB enables this. “For those stable patients who want to, our aim is to drop down face-to-face contact to annual visits and I’m confident that the vast majority of these patients will want this,”

Read the Derriford Hospital case study here.
 
Read the North Manchester General Hospital case study here.

Introducing Shriti Raikundalia
Shriti grew up in Nairobi, Kenya and moved to the UK at the age of 18 with her pet lion (not!). She studied Psychology and Neuroscience and has a Master's in Mental Health. She has worked in the Research, Charity and NHS sectors providing self-management services for people with long term health and mental health problems. 

She joined PKB in February 2016 with a broken wrist! All recovered now she is ready to take on any challenges thrown her way.