The National Health Executive (NHE) has reported on a pilot study exploring the efficacy of ICB-managed text messaging to help pre-diabetic patients engage more with health intervention programmes has reported back very promising results.
The study, which was conducted by Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, was designed to investigate whether some of the latest digital communications software – when managed at ICB-level – was more effective than traditional postal invites at getting patients to actively involve themselves in healthy lifestyle programmes.
Key outcomes from the trial included:
- Text prompts led to a 1,000%+ increase in referrals to the NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme (NDPP) – going from an average of 32 referrals per month to 363 per month.
- A 331% bump in the amount of patients attending at least one session of the NDPP – going from an average of 16 patients attending per month to 69 in the first month of the study.
- A 181% improvement in the number of patients attending sessions over a three-month period – going from an average of 16 patients reaching Milestone 1 per month to 45 patients per month.