IQVIA is making its breakthrough AppScript™ platform publicly available to NHS Clinicians, enabling them to prescribe NHS Apps Library to their patients for free.
AppScript™ launches following the recent IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science report, ‘The Growing Value of Digital Health in the United Kingdom: Evidence and Impact on Human Health and the Healthcare System’, which found leading digital health apps included in the ‘AppScript™ Essentials’ list of top apps, have the potential to improve patient outcomes and save the UK healthcare system ~£2Bn per year.
AppScript™ is a leading platform for discovering, prescribing, and tracking the use of digital patient engagement tools including apps, connected devices, and patient education content. AppScript™ has been made available to a number of beta testing sites across the NHS, including six GP surgeries and five pharmacies. These pilot programmes found that when NHS clinicians used AppScript™ to prescribe digital patient engagement tools to patients, their patients engaged 41 percent of the time, consistent with engagement requirements to meet estimated population health benefits shown in the IQVIA Institute report. Furthermore, the NHS, using Digital Assessment Questions (DAQs), have vetted all NHS Apps Library apps and consider these to reflect good quality digital standards for safety, experience and effectiveness (e.g. address an array of standards including: certain privacy, security, usability, accessibility, technical stability and other NHS requirements).
NHS Apps Library apps available in AppScript™ could help NHS clinicians make their practices more efficient and effective at supporting patients’ health goals. GPs may reduce unnecessary administrative patient visits, creating more time to focus on complex consultations, by using AppScript™ to recommend repeat prescription apps (e.g., Echo and DIMEC) and telemedicine apps (e.g., Babylon Health, Now GP and Engage Consult). Additionally, some NHS Apps Library apps may enhance patient outcomes: MyCOPD, which is commissioned by NHS England for the pulmonary rehabilitation of moderate to severe COPD patients, has been shown to be non-inferior to traditional face-to-face pulmonary rehabilitation, creating the potential to reduce emergency hospitalisation risk in this population.
“Digital Health apps create a unique opportunity for NHS clinicians to encourage patients to change behaviours well after they leave the GP surgery or pharmacy. However, selecting and prescribing the apps most likely to provide patient care benefits has traditionally been a challenge. Our AppScript™ pilots showed that discussing and prescribing apps with patients was relatively simple. IQVIA’s AppScript™ solution is providing a needed public service by enabling NHS clinicians to get started prescribing NHS Apps Library apps for free.” said Professor Paul Wallace, Clinical Director Digital, South London HIN and UCL Emeritus Professor of Primary Care.
Paul Chatterton, Regional Deputy Superintendent Pharmacist, H I Weldrick Ltd., commented: “Our vision for a digital pharmacy includes the proactive engagement of patients by pharmacy staff, often by providing valuable digital patient engagement tools, such as apps and educational content. AppScript is a valuable tool that helps our staff members learn about, and ultimately prescribe, leading apps such as repeat prescription apps which aid patients in self-management and furthers our vision. The patient engagement has been remarkable, with 48 percent of patients downloading prescribed apps.”
Tim Sheppard, General Manager, Northern Europe, IQIVIA, said: “Our AppScript™ pilots have shown the groundswell of interest NHS clinicians and patients have in digital health. The public launch of AppScript™ represents a major step forward in our comprehensive strategy for progressing the vision of digital patient engagement across the United Kingdom.”
He added: “Individual clinicians will be able to electronically prescribe their first app within minutes of visiting www.appscript.net or downloading our AppScript™ iOS app from iTunes. This will help to quickly familiarise these clinicians with a novel but complementary patient care paradigm at a time when the benefits of this are increasingly clear.”
