1. NHS Choices: an international model for
public information on health
Prof. Bob Gann
Director of Partnerships & Strategy
NHS Choices
Department of Health, UK
2. Public demand for information: an international
phenomenon
When faced with a symptom:
• 75% of patients research their condition online before seeing doctor
• And 70% go online afterwards to learn more
Having found health information online:
• 55% changed their lifestyle or health behaviour
• 52% made a self-diagnosis
• 49% started an over the counter treatment
Study commissioned by Google
from research company OTX
Reported on CNN Health 4 October 2010
3. UK Government Policy
“Our vision is of an information revolution in which people
have the information they need to stay healthy, to take
decisions about and exercise more control of their care,
and to make the right choices for themselves and their
families”
Liberating the NHS White Paper July 2010
4. NHS Choices – strategic objectives
• Access to trusted health information for patients & public in England
• Make it easier to find, rate, choose and compare services
• Reduce avoidable contacts & increase appropriateness in primary care
• Support people to live healthier lives
• Help people manage their long term condition and social care needs
• Respond to demand for public information in public health emergency
5. NHS Choices www.nhs.uk
The National Health Service
website for patients in England
80,000 pages of information
150m visits a year
Translate button on every page for 30 languages
Used for these screenshots
6. Conditions & treatments
Evidence based, NHS branded information on 800 conditions & treatments
Multimedia formats including text, video, animations
Major databases of medicines & clinical trials
7. Positive health & prevention
Hundreds of interactive tools to support healthy lifestyles
Body mass index calculator most visited page on NHS Choices
Couch to 5K exercise podcast downloaded over 3million times
8. Health news
Behind the Headlines – looking at the evidence behind stories in popular
newspapers
1-2 stories analysed every day
9. Finding & using local services
Searchable directories of local health services
Links through to online transactions including hospital appointment bookings
& electronic prescribing
10. Provider profiles and patient ratings
Detailed profile pages for all healthcare providers – edited by providers
themselves within national template
Patients provide ratings & comments – “TripAdvisor for health”
Comments moderated before publication & providers notified so they can reply
11. Open data on clinical quality
NHS Choices pioneered opening up clinical performance of providers
Comparative scorecards in simple “Compare the Market” format which
consumers are used to in other areas of life
600 clinical indicators published including hospital infection rates, readmission
rates, mortality, waiting times etc.
13. What users look at
34%
Treatments 16%
8%
& Conditions NHS Service
Live Well 3,880,445 visitors
Directories
846,098 visitors
1,800,115 visitors
7%
1% Carers Front
Direct page
100,914 visitors 765,540 visitors
7%
1% Medical Common
advice now Health Questions
116,591 visitors 751,842 visitors
Behind the NHS in 4%
headlines Home Page England
2% 249,078 visitors 460,869 visitors
Planners Tools
305,354 visitors 338,570 visitors 3%
Scorecard
3% 360,301 visitors
3%
14. Driving up website traffic
Website optimised for best
search results on Google
Top of search results for wide
range of common health
terms
Biggest contributor to
increase in website traffic
Quality assurance – easier to
find good information than
bad
15. Building the evidence base
Research is beginning to show statistically
significant correlations between patient
ratings & more objective measures of
provider and physician quality
Associations Between Web-Based Patient Ratings and
Objective Measures of Hospital Quality
Greaves et al.
Archives of Internal Medicine.2012; 0:16751-2
The changing Landscape of Physician Quality Reporting:
Analysis of Patients’ Online Ratings of Their Physicians
Over a 5-Year Period
Guodong Gordon Gao et al
J Med Internet Res 2012;14(1):e38
16. Building the evidence base
Minor ailments make up fifth of all GP appointments,
account for 57m GP visits a year & cost NHS £2bn a year
37% of visitors to NHS Choices said they’d avoided the
need for a GP appointment
Use of NHS Choices website for primary care consultations
Murray et al
J R Soc Med Sh Rep 2011;2:56
17. Bridging the digital
divide
8.5 million people in UK
have never used the
internet
More likely to be older
people, people with
disabilities & people from
low incomes – those most
likely to need health care
services
Working through
intermediaries like libraries
& community groups
18. The mobile revolution
More mobile phones than people in
the world
23% of online surfing via mobile
device (27% of visits to NHS Choices)
50% of iPhone users have used their
phone to make a health related search
NHS Choices – site optimised for
mobile, health apps, find local
services, patient comment
Mobile Advertising Insights Report:
Health and Dating Using the iPhone
Greystripe., February 2010
19. Syndication: extending reach
& supporting innovation
Over 200 partners taking NHS
Choices content feeds (APIs) free
of charge to include in their own
sites Major portals
Social networking sites
As many visits to NHS Choices
content via partners as to
www.nhs.uk
Local NHS sites Other countries
20. Thank you
For any questions please contact
bob.gann@dh.gsi.gov.uk
Twitter: Bob_Gann