MJog is a fully automated appointment reminder service designed to reduce DNAs (Do not attends) for practice users, and to improve clinic attendance. The system is proven to cut DNAs by as much as 90% and enables GP practices to quickly and efficiently contact patients to remind them of appointments. The system also provides a convenient patient reply service, as well as the option for patients to opt in or out as required.

Chris Netherton, Managing Director of Microtest explains: “With communication to patients taking place either automatically or at the touch of a button, we feel this added service will reduce DNAs and be of benefit to both patients and Microtest practices by providing quicker and easier access to clinicians.”  Kevin Nutt of MJog says: “We are delighted to be working with Microtest, a leading provider of innovative IT solutions in Primary Care, who understand the importance of introducing modern cost effective electronic communications that allow their GPs to maximise Patient utilisation of clinic services and increase health awareness”.

All Microtest GP practices will be able to use this new service.

Already used throughout Hospitals, the service increases the number of patients that can be contacted, meaning that QOF targets can be reached more efficiently and DNAs will be further reduced.

Laura Slatcher, Web Services Project Leader at Trafford NHS Healthcare comments: “Using MJog’s Voice Messaging Service for patient reminders we were able to increase our coverage to 92% of patients and therefore further reduce our DNA rates. Typically 3% of our patients cancel their appointments 7 days in advance, allowing us to offer almost 300 extra appointments a month to other patients.”

For further information on the benefits to your Practice visit Voice Reminders, or contact us today!

In a recent article in the MDU’s new journal for GPs and GPSTs, Good Practice, the MDU says that it is unwise to rely on patients’ implied consent to allow the practice to communicate with them in this way. It is better to adopt a cautious approach and get the patient’s express consent.

Dr James Armstrong, MDU medico-legal adviser said:

“Some hospital trusts have implemented text messaging schemes on an ‘opt out’ basis, except for some specified vulnerable patient groups. To make sure patients are provided with ample opportunity to opt out though, considerable publicity needs to be given to such schemes, which trusts may have the resources to implement.

MJog agrees that the key to gaining Patient confidence and their consent to receiving reminder messages from either their local Hospital or their GP is through raising awareness of the benefits of the services to both the Patient, and the NHS, through simple and effective publicity campaigns.

Dr James Armstrong, MDU medico-legal adviser continues:

“While GPs may publicise a text message service to patients on the practice website, practice leaflet and through posters in the waiting room, many patients may still not be aware of the service. They might be surprised to receive a text message from the surgery if they had not given their specific consent and this could lead to a complaint, particularly if the unexpected message is somehow picked up by somebody else.

Using MJog, and free text messages delivered through NHSMail, all NHS Hospitals and Practices can easily inform their Patients in advance that they intend to send them appointment reminders using the mobile number that they have provided. If the Patient would prefer not to be contacted in this way, they can easily reply by text or by calling to “opt-out” of the free service.

In support of text messaging, the MDU recognises that text messaging can work well as a communication tool. It highlighted one case in Good Practice, a GP practice instigated a system to allow patients to cancel appointments by text message. Dr Shikha Pitalia and the team at Ashton Medical Centre in Wigan managed to cut the previously high do not attend rates by 20 per cent. The practice won the MDU GP Enterprise Award as a result.

At a time where the NHS have been asked to look at ways to reduce expenses and make improvements to efficiency, imposing restrictions that will have a direct impact on the effectiveness of these services is counterproductive to the huge improvements that patients and the NHS can benefit from.

As one of our customers pointed out: “It is not possible for us to write to every one of our 10,000 patients to ask for their consent. Our only alternative if this is not resolved would be to stop using text reminders. This would be a very great pity.”

Using the EMIS Population Manager to target Type 1 & Type 2 Diabetic patients, MJog’s Health Campaign Manager can quickly and efficiently recall up to 65% of your patients in a quarter of the time it would take to run a similar campaign via post and at a reduced cost.

Chris Pease of Chiswick Health Centre, who regularly uses the MJog Health Campaign Manager, says: “Patients began calling immediately after the text messages were sent, and a week into the campaign we had received just over 300 calls, a 65% response rate!”.

For further information on how MJog can help you to improve your response rates to Health Campaigns, contact us today.

The shortfall in patients receiving the vaccination over the last three months has seen an increase in GP Practices trying to find innovative ways to send reminders to patients without the practice incurring large costs. Text reminders have proven successful in improving attendance at vaccination clinics across the country and is fast being adopted by practices that have previously used traditional methods.

Users of the Health Campaign Manager to send reminders have been impressed by the huge reductions in costs text reminders offer, and the increase of up to 65% in response rates in comparison to traditional methods.

Samantha Rogers of The Freemen’s Common Health Centre comments: “We sent a Health Campaign an hour before the clinic was due to begin. By the time it started, the clinic was at full capacity!”

For further information on how the Health Campaign Manager can help you to achieve the pay threshold for Swine Flu Vaccinations contact us today.

The cost of traditional postal methods is often overlooked as an expense. When broken down the costs of stamps alone for 2,000 recalls is £780. Add in the cost of envelopes at £120, paper costs at £80, and the ink cartridges at £50 and the overall cost has escalated to £1,030 – and this isn’t taking into consideration the staffing time to export the patient list, write the letter template and manually pack & post the letter!

Using the Health Campaign Manager from MJog to send free messages via NHSmail can reduce these costs on postal methods alone by 40%. It can also dramatically reduce the time it takes staff to send the messages – a text campaign takes just 20 minutes to plan, write and send messages with the response vastly increased and instantaneous, which improves efficiency!

For further information on how to reduce costs at your practice, contact us today!

*Calculated based on average costs of postal rates and stationery January 2010.

The implications of running a traditional health campaign such as this are that it could take months to complete and have high associated costs in terms of staff time, printing, postage costs and follow up telephone calls, with uptake being relatively low.

Using the MJog Health Campaign Manager to send immunisation reminders to patients could dramatically increase uptake to 65%* and reduce the time it takes to run a campaign such as this from four months to just one.

As well as increasing intial uptake, reminders for the second and third doses could then easily be managed in the Advanced Patient Group feature of MJog, as well as sending reminders to all those patients that didn’t respond to the initial invite.

With HPV infections accounting for 99% of all diagnosed cases of Cervical Cancer (the second most common cause of cancer in women), the QOF related targets to HPV immunisation doesn’t look set to wane any time soon.

Read the NHS HPV Vaccination Report

* Chiswick Health Centre

In his pre-budget speech of Saturday 5th Dec 2009 the Prime Minister said

“This is not a time for reckless experiments. We will harness the power of technology to further improve our hospitals, schools and police forces at the front line.

But the power of technology also allows us to secure better value for money. Already some GPs send text messages to remind people of upcoming appointments. This is helping the NHS save a substantial amount of the £600 million annual cost of missed appointments”

Speaking to the Royal Society on the 7th December, the PM re-iterated the above, adding

“that is the equivalent of 24 new secondary schools, or over 13 thousand nurses”

Mr Brown said of technology in public services

“The opportunities for enhanced services and better value for money are enormous.”

By contrast, Alistair Darling has also hinted that the controversial National Programme for IT (NpfIT) would be drastically scaled back, with both labour and the tories leaning toward local initiatives to implement IT systems. Darling told The Andrew Marr Show on the BBC on Sunday : “It is necessary for me, on Wednesday, to indicate areas where we are going to cut spending and where we are not going to spend as much as we were…the NHS has quite an expensive IT system that, frankly, is not essential for the front line. That’s something we do not need to go ahead with just now.”

MJog text messaging is widely used within the NHS by both primary and secondary care providers. When used in conjunction with the reliable NHSMail texting platform provided by Connecting for Health, MJog provides a secure, robust and extremely cost effective way of messaging your patients. DNA reduction rates can be shown to approach 90% of patients texted and patient satisfaction is extremely high. Contact Us

Two way messaging is now available free of charge from MJog. The first of its kind to be offered, the new technology utilises NHSmail and can improve efficiency, reduce DNAs and increase clinic attendance even further for both Primary & Secondary care across the country. For further information contact us.

As many of our users know, NHSMail based text messaging is currently one-way, with no way for the patient to respond to messages and reminders. Although not absolutely required for appointment reminders (a uni-directional system undoubtedly helps contribute to the reduction in DNA’s observed by MJog users) two way messaging allows patients a highly convenient method to confirm or cancel their appointment .

Whilst there are many reasons to upgrade to our premium message service (two way messaging being just one of them) we believe that the benefits of two way messaging are so good that we’ve created a two way service that builds onto the current high value platform offered via NHSMail and MJog. We’ve included this into the MJog Light product offering so now you can even use it during your free trial period. Of course, if you don’t want to permit patient replies, the feature can be turned off. In fact, you can permit or deny the facility on a per message basis which means that you might choose to prevent patients from replying to appointment reminders (although we don’t recommend this) whilst allowing patients to respond to Smoking Cessation or Flu Jab clinic invites…

Test results indicators have been sent using the “Now” messaging feature, which allows Practices to send an instant text message to any patient. The messages have detailed a need for the patient to contact the Practice or that no further action is required. The delivery is instant and is free of charge if sent via NHSmail. Practices are now investigating implementing the service on a more permanent basis. For further details contact us.