In May 2023, over 10% of all hospital beds in England were blocked by patients who were medically fit for discharge, but could not be discharged. This was due to a lack of a coordinated approach on how the patient would be cared for once they left the hospital. Blocked beds contribute to other patients waiting longer in the emergency department before they are admitted, and in turn, results in longer ambulance handover times in the emergency department, as emergency departments struggle with the volumes of patients. By making discharges efficient with better management and flow of information between organisations, more beds could be made available in a timely manner. All stakeholders in the discharge process including, hospital coordinators and NHS services, care home facilities, domiciliary care providers, charities and care providers including family members need clear visibility of the patient's current state and aftercare requirements to plan for an effective discharge from the hospital. Many of these stakeholders are either out of the loop of the process or receive incomplete information with large delays trying to get the details they need to plan and provide the services and actions required. Our project will design a digital solution called PatientFlo incorporating people-centred and system-aware design principles to solve the multidisciplinary problem described above. PatientFlo will provide comprehensive communication and coordination capabilities to manage cross-organisational workflows in the complex discharge process. Enabling the creation of a user-friendly solution, in the form of a mobile app and web-based service with administrator portals, will help coordinate community care services, sending people home or to a care facility from the hospital with improved care services that should reduce readmission rates. PatientFlo is innovative because it addresses an urgent health problem. It targets an existing process that is manual, paper-based, and reliant on phone communication, digitises the process, making it more efficient and scalable. It aligns well with the current Integrated Care Boards where place-based partnerships will play a major role in improving the health and wellbeing of the population.

On any given day in the NHS, hospitals have a large number of patients who are ready for discharge, but have no way of getting home by themselves. Consequently, hospitals have started contracting with local charities to take these patients home from hospital, however the scheduling and managing of this service is very manual. Our project will create a digital solution, PatientFlo, that not only automates and digitises the 'Home from Hospital' service, but also ensures a regular check-in between the patient and the charity to reduce the number of readmissions into hospital. In addition to addressing the patient's mental and physical wellbeing after discharge, this project will help free up beds for patients waiting for treatment, and consequently reduce long ambulance handover delays. PatientFlo will be user-friendly, intuitive, secure and be used by multiple personae. The process to help patients get discharged will be initiated by a NHS ward manager in hospital using PatientFlo to notify their local charity of patients who are ready for discharge, but have no way of getting home by themselves. The charity administrator who receives these notifications on PatientFlo will manage and schedule charity wellbeing workers to transport patients from hospital to home. The patient will continue to receive visits from the wellbeing worker for up to six weeks post-discharge if they live by themselves. PatientFlo will help schedule the follow-up visits, and allow the wellbeing worker to use the solution as a digital diary for the patient. These visits are important to ensure the patient is in an environment where they can recover well, e.g. they have food and heating, which reduces the chance of readmission to hospital. These visits will also reduce the anxiety of patients who live by themselves, reduce loneliness and improve their mental health. PatientFlo is innovative because it addresses an urgent health problem. It targets an existing process that is manual, paper-based, and reliant on phone communication, digitises the process, making it more efficient and scalable. It aligns well with the current Integrated Care Boards where place-based partnerships will play a major role in improving the health and wellbeing of the population. PatientFlo will be developed in collaboration with Age UK in Bath, who will then be our first customer. PatientFlo will be designed to interoperate with NHS systems and will comply with NHS Digital standards like DCB0129 and DBC0160\.

"The idea is around using modern video games to aid in physiotherapy and rehabilitation of young people. For children and young people recovering from a physical injury, rehabilitation involves regular, repetitive exercises which are often considered boring or painful. The lack of motivation results in the inability to follow the regimen and subsequently, longer recovery periods. The intention is to evaluate modern technologies and whether the 'gamification' of therapy, using easy to use, easy to procure games on digital media."