Could behavioural insights improve patient engagement?
Health tech, Mental health
25 February 2019
By Rebecca
Could behavioural insights improve patient engagement and reduce DNAs? Of the 1.4 million referrals to IAPT in 2017/18, three in five people didn’t complete a course of treatment.
Mayden and The Behavioural Insights Team collaboration
Mayden and The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) collaborated on a research project to test how sending text messages to patients on IAPT (now Talking Therapies) waiting lists could increase patient engagement and make them more likely to complete treatment.
We’re fascinated by what the trial shows us. Crucially, the big impact that small changes in wording and frequency of messages have on how patients engage with services. The results are in! But first, some background.
BIT is a social purpose company. It started at 10 Downing Street as the world’s first government institution dedicated to the application of behavioural sciences. The team uses insights from behavioural science to encourage people to make better choices for themselves and society.
At Mayden, we believe that technology should work for and with you. It should increase your productivity and enable you to spend less time carrying out general admin, and other manual operations. Ultimately, it should enable you to spend more time seeing patients.
The study…
In the study, we used the bulk actions feature in iaptus to send carefully worded text messages that were developed, tested and honed by BIT, to patients at different stages of treatment.
The text messages provided regular updates from services, and reassurance that the service was working to keep the patient moving along the waiting list.
Seven adult Talking Therapies services took part in the trial, and the teams randomised each new referral within iaptus. This ensured that patients in the test group received additional messages, while control group patients did not. A total of 17,065 patients took part in the trial.
The results show that sending text messages to patients between referral and scheduling their second appointment increases engagement with the service. These patients were more likely to attend their first and second appointments, as well as subsequent appointments.
Sending these messages also reduces the likelihood that patients will drop out of treatment, even at later stages.
In summary, when your service engages patients with well-crafted text messages while they await appointments, it can increase engagement, reduce DNAs, and improve service productivity.
Would you like to engage your patients in this way? Contact your account manager, who will be happy to help.