Trial With Diabetes Patients
As part of the West Midlands rollout of Florence, South and East Staffordshire Community Diabetes team set out to tackle a significant problem. Groups of diabetic patients were unable to consistently manage their condition within the normal clinical pathway, this results in many Doctor/ Clinician contacts and hospital admissions. That’s before we consider the distress and anxiety experienced by patients’.
Using Florence the team designed an innovative pilot project to help patients to help themselves. The aim was to increase the quality of care, which if achieved would result in improved patient experience, better self management and improved HBA1c levels. They would also like to see productivity gains through less visits and phone calls and improved prevention with less hospital admissions.
The pilot consisted of 22 patients with a mix of type 1 and type 2 diabetes and reflected the mix of patients the team usually dealt with on a day to day basis. Each patient was monitored over 12 weeks.
Baseline
Six months of baseline data was collected for each patient prior to enrolment in the following categories.
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Clinical Time (Phone calls and clinic appointments)
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Medication compliance
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HBA1C levels
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Hypo’s and admissions
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Patient satisfaction
Results
Clinical Time: 60% reduction in the amount of clinical time taken to manage patients. This includes time spent with Florence.
Medication Compliance: 80% of participants who were not already “compliant” at the start, increased compliance with their medication regime which more than doubled the number of fully compliant patients compared to the baseline.
HBA1c Levels: At the time of writing this analysis is incomplete, however so far results show 55% of participants have lower HBA1c levels compared to their baseline.
Hypo Events and Admissions: Three of the participants previously had frequent hypoglycaemic attacks. During participation, two had no attacks and one had a single mild attack. None of the participants were admitted to hospital.
Patient Satisfaction: Patients were asked a range of questions after week 12. Questions range from understanding of Florence, privacy, comfort, confidence, self management, and reassurance received from Florence. Patients were also asked if they would like to see Florence as a standard service in the future, and how Florence supports the current healthcare services they receive. Responses have shown 100% positive feedback and patients have asked if they can continue to be supported by Florence.