Non-compliance to healthcare guidance has always been a significant challenge in healthcare, particularly long term conditions management.
The latest figures show that there are over 26 million people in the UK living with a long-term condition (NHS), with one in four adults living with more than one condition (NIHR).
Multimorbidity is on the rise and it is these patients that need more personalised care that allows them to access seamless health and social care services.
Florence: Supporting behaviour change for patients with Long Term conditions (LTC) using Florence
Acknowledging the significant impact that patients can have on their own health if supported, educated and enabled by focusing on improving patient adherence, clinical outcomes are improved faster.
Clinicians retain responsibility but with effective mechanisms of motivating patients towards behaviour changes impacting on condition, the patient becomes an active participant – adding a value that often only they can!
Florence was designed by looking at motivation and what motivates patients to increase their quality of care in between face-to-face contacts as part of a share management plan. Florence is not condition or purpose specific but focuses on helping patients to help themselves.
For example, through motivating and engaging patients to adhere to their shared management plan, patients reporting biometric or symptom data and following Florence’s advice in between clinical contacts increases the likelihood of patients accessing the right service, at the right time when additional clinical intervention is required.
This added quality gain not only enables earlier clinical intervention to take place resulting in more effective decision-making, but also increases the productivity and value of any subsequent intervention. Where additional clinical intervention is not required, Florence reassures the patient who can then continue on with their day, increasing the patient’s feeling of control of their condition and reducing avoidable contacts driven by concern.
Such interactions may need to be short term perhaps where a condition is being diagnosed or excluded, where medication is being titrated or if a condition has been newly diagnosed or longer term where ongoing support adds additional benefit; although overtime many patients grow in confidence sufficiently to self-manage without Flo’s interactions as their understanding and sense of control over their condition grows.
Across the many pathways currently implemented, sometimes Florence will support patients to follow advice as and when required, and in others Florence will motivate patients to take some sort of necessary action if their condition has deteriorated and a particular threshold has been met.
Both elements are typically involved in Florence’s pathways and either advice or action requirements will be initiated depending on the patient’s reported data. This allows the patient to safely self-manage according to Florence’s advice as documented in their shared management plan where this is possible yet adds a further interventional prompt where the patient’s condition has deteriorated sufficiently enough to require them to undertake a definite action such as contacting their clinician.
This allows care to be accessed and delivered at the right time when clinically indicated.
Key benefits for using Florence
- Care delivered according to clinical indication
- Capacity to manage more complex patients increased – To provide care and support at the appropriate point in the patient’s pathway based on level of need as a result of released capacity generated by home monitoring
- Reduced anxiety – due to the opportunity to self-monitor with timely feedback and increased understanding of their condition and what it means to them
- Improved access to readings –To Improve clinical decision making
- Patient safety increased – With real time advice including guidance of what to do if their condition worsens or support needs increasing as per their management plan: who to contact, how and where
- Capture of data – on which treatment decision is made
- Reduce avoidable healthcare usage, crisis episodes and side effects on non-compliance (e.g., attendance at GP surgery, Out of Hours, Community Nurse or A&E) – Due to patient’s increased understanding of clinical indicators, appropriate routes of access and improved compliance to clinical guidance
- Alternative to home-visits – titrated with face-to-face care according to need
- Freedom for patient to manage their condition
- Positive patient satisfaction
Case Studies
Read more about how Florence increases efficiencies within healthcare.
For more clinical evidence, please visit our Florence.Community website
