The feedback collected through survey results in HOPE drives improvements in care across
the NSW health system.
The Challenge
With today’s technological advancements, there is a lot we can tell about a patient without even talking to them (e.g. their heart rate and blood pressure and recent admission history). However, unless patients (and/or their carers) are asked what is important to them and how they rate their quality of life and experiences of healthcare, we don’t know the whole picture.
By collecting patient reported measure surveys through HOPE, patients can provide a snapshot of their overall health, such as ability to socialise, shop, walk unaided, how they are feeling and sleeping. This information creates a new conversation with clinicians focused on what matters to the patient, helping provide a more holistic picture of their healthcare needs.
The Plan
eHealth NSW developed the HOPE platform in partnership with the Agency for Clinical Innovation and NSW Ministry of Health. It was co-designed with patients, carers, clinicians and service managers from across the state. HOPE is a purpose-built platform developed using ServiceNow and includes custom-built patient, carer and clinician portals.
The patient and carer portals can be accessed from any device using their Service NSW account to provide consent and complete the patient reported measures surveys.
The clinician portal provides clinicians with the ability to routinely collect and use patient reported measures surveys. Results can be viewed in real-time for individuals and patient groups. Clinicians can then use this data to participate in shared decision making and inform the care and treatment with their patient.
The platform went live in February 2021 and continues to be rolled out across Local Health Districts, Speciality Health Networks and primary care locations.
Further enhancements have been made to the HOPE platform to benefit patients, carers and clinicians. New features include a carer portal, additional surveys, paediatric surveys and workflows, translation into 10 languages and improved reporting, decision support and accessibility features.
As part of continuous improvements, roll-out of HOPE platform was extended to include Long COVID in June 2022. This also included enhanced dashboards and reporting for managers.
The Outcome
HOPE has, for the first time, enabled the provision of routine and systematic direct feedback to clinicians and care teams about patient outcomes and experiences in real time. It is helping to deliver better patient outcomes and continues to improve the social, emotional and overall wellbeing for patients.
The platform is being embedded into everyday clinical practice and can be easily transferred to multiple health settings. Development of HOPE continues to better meet the needs of NSW’s growing culturally diverse population. The patient and carer portals have been translated in to nine languages other than English. All Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) surveys have also been translated to support culturally safe and inclusive care for patients.
HOPE is being integrated with the electronic Medical Record (eMR) and Patient Administration System (PAS). This integration enables single sign on for clinicians and provides access to PRMs within the eMR. This gives clinicians a better understanding of patient needs and improves shared decision-making discussions with patients.
As of February 2024, there are:
- 683 active services using HOPE
- 100,000+ patient surveys completed
- 500+ PROM surveys completed in languages other than English
- Multiple surveys for 37 different clinical programs
- 14 LHDs and 1 SHN with HOPE integrated with eMR/PAS.
The Benefits
The HOPE platform aims to change patient and clinician conversations from ‘what’s the matter with you’ to ‘what matters to you’. Through capturing patient’s outcomes and experiences, care teams can provide more patient-centred care, better tailored to an individual’s particular needs and circumstances.
Patients report the surveys available in HOPE are a great way to express how they are feeling, raise issues not otherwise discussed and help get the healthcare they need. This is helping to improve the patient’s quality of life and overall experience of care.
Patients are invited to provide feedback multiple times throughout the duration of their care. This provides a longitudinal snapshot of a person’s symptom burden, outcomes, and overall quality of life enabling patients and clinicians to better monitor their health, symptoms and condition over time.
By improving the visibility of the patient’s outcomes across the continuum of care, care teams now have data throughout different stages of the patient’s healthcare journey which is leading to more holistic care aligned with needs and preferences of patients.
Through HOPE, healthcare teams have real-time access to reports and dashboards, as well as the ability to run their own reports. The aggregate data can be used to celebrate what is working well across health services and will also drive improvements in service delivery.
NSW Health will continue to use patient reported measures to improve all levels of the healthcare system:
- At the point of care (to add value to clinicians and their patients)
- At the health service level
- At the health system level.
Data correct as of February 2024
Related links
The Patient Reported Measures Program gives patients the opportunity to provide direct, timely feedback about ...
Patient Reported Measures will transform the health system - improving outcomes, experience and quality of care.