The background

The Pulvertaft Hand Centre is a leading international hand surgery centre located within the Royal Derby Hospital. The centre treats a wide range of conditions of the hand and wrist, as well as running postgraduate courses for doctors, nurses and therapists.

Marked Improvement have worked with the Pulvertaft since our early days, including the development of an e-learning course and platform on radiation protection for surgeons using portable X-ray equipment.

The challenge

A month into the first COVID lockdown in 2020, the Pulvertaft faced the issue of how to continue supporting patients in the context of the massive restrictions on everyday life.

They had an existing mobile app which had been developed 5 years previously, but this was now outdated and it only worked on iOS devices, thereby limiting availability.

The results

The primary aim here was to avoid unnecessary outpatient visits during lockdown, but as further exercises and other features focused on patient education were added, it became clear that the ‘PH Rehab’ platform would have benefits beyond COVID.

The Trust have used the platform as evidence of their environmental commitment, estimating that 12.7 tonnes of CO2e were saved during the first 3 months of implementation of PH Rehab and related measures as a result of the reduction in patient visits.

But, perhaps more importantly, while not all digital healthcare has been well received by patients, PH Rehab has had an exceptionally positive response from both patients and clinicians.

The future