Intouch can help the NHS to increase productivity and improve the quality of services through innovative use of communications technology.

 

Self care education and information prescriptions for care plans

doctorprescriptionApproximately 15 million patients in the UK have a long term condition. The Department of Health’s directive of January 2009 states that all these patients should, by 2010, receive personalised care plans from their GP. It states that two essential components of these care plans are suitable self care education (which can be provided by Intouch’s Staywell range), and an information prescription (which can be provided by Intouch’s unique Information Prescription System, info2you).

Care Plans supported by touch screen kiosks

An exciting innovation being worked on by Intouch is the use of touch-screen kiosks to support care plans for patients. When increased self care knowledge is a goal agreed between patient and GP, the doctor can direct them to a health kiosk offering Intouch’s Staywell self care education programmes which are designed for multi-media access, including touch screen. When the GP issues an information prescription to a patient, their printed IP slip carries a bar code. The patient simply shows the slip to the kiosk’s bar code reader and, having confirmed their date of birth, they will be shown their prescribed information with the option to print it out from the kiosk’s integral printer.