Challenge
Monitoring the quality of care is a complex process, not in the least because of the information asymmetry and multitude of involved stakeholders. PEP solves the following problems currently experienced in the monitoring the quality of care: 1. Costs of information collection 2. Throughput time (quality ratings lag behind reality) 3. Quality, trustworthiness, independence (inspectors are not the actual patients) 4. Demographic and hindsight bias (existing surveys are skewed towards older patients reflecting on their care after the event).
Opportunity
Potential customers of the platform include healthcare providers, consultancies, insurance companies and care purchasers, information platforms, inspectorates and patient organisations. The underlying algorithm also works for other markets, and has been validated as an instrument for collecting student voice for UK higher education institutes. The venture will commercialise this opportunity around the world, building on existing traction in the UK and expanding fast to healthcare markets in the US and other promising EU-countries.
Solution
The Patient Experience Platform (PEP) is a system that reads and combines multiple sources of patient feedback (incl. social media) to form a near real-time collective judgement on quality for individual hospitals and departments on any given date. The underlying algorithm, the Patient Voice Tracking System (PVTS), has been shown to offer an effective predictor of the outcomes of in-depth quality inspections of hospitals in England. The publication detailing these findings remained the most read article in the BMJ Quality & Safety journal for five months after its publication.
Status
PEP has a working prototype that is currently being used in a (paid) pilot study with NHS Trusts, as well as through a partnership with Picker Institute Europe. Simultaneously, the venture is further refining the existing algorithms and developing a secure, interactive dashboard to allow users to explore the data themselves in preparation of further commercial roll-out.
Meet the team
Meghan Leaver
Inventor
Alex Griffiths
Inventor
