Project Name: IHD Digital Solution - Penguin Patient Management System

Project Summary:

Provide and implement  a remote monitoring solution in Rheumatology to assist both in the ongoing monitoring and care of disease management and health to improve  access and experience of care.    

In this project, Cievert (on behalf of Novartis), will complete the configuration of a bespoke Rheumatology clinical template by determining the clinical data to be collected including PROMs, patient pathway, clinical data to be imported from other systems (e.g. blood test result systems) and the configuration of the clinician’s and patient’s dashboard.  Following configuration, the Penguin system will then be implemented within the Trust’s system.

Implementation of the solution in the NHS aims to;

  • Empower patients to own their disease through the ability to track their disease through validated PROMs and clinician touchpoints over time;
  • Flag to clinicians patients who report outcome measures that are outside of the clinically-determined tolerance levels, or whose scores are on a consistent downward trend.  These real-time rapid alerts of patients not achieving optimal outcomes will enable their care to be reviewed and optimised more quickly than if the patient had to wait for a scheduled appointment;
  • Support the move to a needs-based care model, keeping well-managed patients with minimal disease impact out of secondary care and managed through virtual consultations, recycling capacity to manage those patients who are not achieving optimal outcomes; 
  • Support clinicians to make a confident and informed decision about a patient’s treatment plan, virtually or face to face, based on patient reported outcomes; and
  • Enable clinicians to prioritise new patient referrals and the backlog of patients caused by unanticipated workload e.g. COVID-19, based on assessment of patient need using the validated PROMs.

The Penguin system will meet the needs of Rheumatology clinical teams treating the following conditions: Rheumatoid Arthritis (“RA”), Psoriatic Arthritis (“PsA”) and Axial Spondyloarthritis (“AS”).

Planned Milestones:

  • Project kick-off meeting
  • Preliminary paperwork/sign-off (including completion of SLA between Cievert and Trust)
  • PDS IT interfacing work completed
  • Pathway mapping and completion of baseline report
  • Local training and configuration of local test platform
  • Live system set-up
  • Start of 15-month license, hosting and support
  • Business case, write-up and project close (including baseline +6 months and +15 months reports)

Expected Benefits:

Anticipated benefits for patients

  • Empower patients to own their disease through provision of educational resources and ability to track progress through validated PROMs and clinician touchpoints over time.
  • Better management of their disease via the clinician’s specifications to the Penguin software solution  (including the clinical template). 
  • A digital platform to record their PROMs at home between appointments, freeing up appointment time to discuss results and patient health factors identified via the PROM questionnaires. 
  • Support to move to a needs-based care model with patient initiated follow up, keeping well patients out of hospital and freeing appointments for patients not achieving optimal outcomes.
  • Reducing the number of hospital appointments for patients who are feeling well and achieving optimal outcomes – saving patients time, reducing time off work and the associated financial outlay with travel to hospital appointments.

Anticipated benefits for the NHS

  • Ability to access to clinical data, including PROMs, for individual patients in one digital platform.
  • Flagging to clinicians patients who report outcome measures that are outside of the clinically-determined tolerance levels, or whose scores are on a consistent downward trend.  These real-time rapid alerts of patients not achieving optimal outcomes will enable their care to be reviewed and optimised more quickly than if the patient had to wait for a scheduled appointment.
  • Support the Trust to move to a needs-based care model, keeping well-managed patients with minimal disease impact out of secondary care and managed through virtual consultations at reduced frequency, recycling capacity to manage those patients who are not achieving optimal outcomes or who are on waiting lists for initial review. 
  • Support clinicians to make a confident and informed decision about a patient’s treatment plan, virtually or face to face, based on patient outcomes.
  • Enabling clinicians to prioritise new patient referrals and the backlog of patients caused by COVID-19 based on assessment of patient need using the validated PROMs

Anticipated benefits for Novartis

  • Creation and real-world use of the Novartis clinical template in the Penguin system for Patient PROMs.
  • Baseline, non-patient identifiable, aggregated Trust data in baseline reports.
  • Increased opportunities for the appropriate use of Rheumatology licensed medicines, including Novartis medicines in suitable patients, in line with local and/or NICE guidelines.
  • Improved reputation through joint working with the Trust to meet an unmet need of benefit to the patient.
  • Aligns with Novartis focus of innovating to address the most significant unmet needs of patients in the UK.

Start Date & Duration: December 2021 to Feb 2024 (27 months)

UK2309120057