Improving study delivery through digital messaging
A senior research nurse from Exeter is streamlining the research pathway for both patients and clinicians by using a popular free messaging app.
Pauline Sibley, senior research nurse at Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, recently set up a WhatsApp group to help manage the research pathway for a new largescale anaesthesia trial.
Recruitment to the trial opened in April 2017 and by the end of May 2017 the team had recruited 8 patients. Following the launch of the WhatsApp group in June 2017 recruitment increased to 40 patients by the end of July. The team are still on track to meet their recruitment target.
The results have been so great that she is now hoping to run ‘lunch and learn sessions’ for research colleagues in the region.
“We had just taken on a big new anaesthetic trial recruiting patients coming in for major and complex surgery,” she said. “There were quite a few of us on the team, from nurses to anaesthetists, and so we needed a way to be able to collaborate clearly using a method which would ensure we all knew which patients needed recruiting, how follow-ups were to be done and who would cover the on-calls at the weekends, for example. It seemed that WhatsApp would enable us to have a real-time up-to-date way of communicating all of this so we set about getting it up-and-running.
“We had to get approval from our Trust Communications Department and ensure everyone in the group knew that no patient identifiable information was to be shared. From then on it’s been plain sailing.”
Pauline said the group has proved invaluable for ensuring every eligible patient is given the opportunity to participate in the trial and that no-one is missed due to changes in theatre lists.
“If we know there are five eligible patients coming in for surgery on any particular morning and we know that they are all first on the theatre lists then we can put a message out on the group chat asking if anyone is free to come and help with consenting the patients. Another example of where WhatsApp is really useful is if a patient already recruited into the study has their surgery delayed we can ask anyone in the WhatsApp group if they can go and see that patient at a later stage. Everyone is kept in the loop and it saves precious clinical time from being wasted.”
Pauline, who has been involved in research for around six years, said the WhatsApp group has helped streamline the research pathway for all involved.
“If we have any medication queries or if we need the anaesthetist to come and look through patient notes to answer any queries then we coordinate that via the group,” she said. “It has streamlined the different parts – data queries, recruitment and follow-up.
“It’s definitely helped with our Recruitment to Time and Target figures too. We are all able to access a list of patients coming in for surgery each day via our Trust system and then communicate via WhatsApp about which member of the multi-disciplinary team is going to be where to ensure no patient is missed. No follow-ups get missed either due to lack of cover as the group messaging ensures we don’t let that happen.”
Pauline and her colleagues now plan to use WhatsApp for every research study where it is appropriate to do.
“It’s so easy and has such great results, I don’t know why we haven’t used it before,” she said. “When you need to communicate about a study with a fairly large multidisciplinary team it really is an invaluable resource.”
