I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 2006 when I was 53, and ever since that
time I've been on a broad range of drugs to control it, and I have to say I'm doing particularly
well. I get my treatment from the Swan Practice
in Buckingham and go there regularly for blood tests in order to monitor how my condition
is.
Good afternoon Swan Practice. Can I help you? I'm looking into the beginning of April now
for these sorts of appointments.
Here at the Swan Practice, we're quite a large practice. We've got around 20, 000 people.
We tend to do between 50 and 60 blood tests per day, and obviously we have other testing
as well. A lot of those people that we see are with long term conditions.
I'm sure it's absolutely fine.
Obviously a key thing for me is getting results of my tests and in the past, before I went
online, I had to take a small booklet down to the surgery for one of the nurses to fill
out the results of the blood tests and then I have to go back to the surgery a couple
of days later and get these all important results in order to get a snapshot of how
my condition was going. Quite frankly I think that process was certainly a nuisance for
me and I sensed it must have been a nuisance for the surgery staff as well.
We started offering patient online access to test results about 6 months ago. We already
had a lot of patients looking at various parts of their record online and this was an additional
service that we could offer them.
When I was first able to actually look at my blood test results online it was fantastic
because suddenly I could see the whole scope of my results when it suited me, find out
and all the information was there and, to my delight, so too was the passed tests that I'd had over
the previous years of my illness. And that was just an eye opening experience, which
really helped me to understand my disease and how I was managing it so much better.
A typical scenario where it would be really useful is a patient comes into see me. We
decide as part of their management plan to do some blood tests and we have a conversation
about how they're going to get those results. I offer them the option of online test access
and then I'll check their record to see if it's already there. If not, I can print them
off a simple leaflet straight from my desktop and I can either sign them up myself or they
go out to reception who will just sign them up.
OK, what you can do is register for patient access, which means that you can look at your
results from home at any time at your convenience.
I go to a consultant outside the areas so she doesn't have access to my online results.
But obviously I do on my iPad and I take that with me to the consultation and we can go
through any of the results and drill down into them and see all of the results in context
there. And that, we're finding, is working very well.
Some people like Graeme are very interested in learning more about what their blood test
actually means. We encourage them to look at a website called Lab Tests Online, which
is really nicely written for patients very clear explanations. We have a section on our
website and also the information leaflet we give out when we sign people up explains a
bit more in detail and sort of where to go to look for more information
What's changed is that we have far fewer calls from patients asking us to give them information
on their tests results. Nowadays they can get their test results online, 24-7 from their
own homes.
When I first explain to people how to use the online test result, they are quite excited
about it. It means they don't have to ring in. They can just sit at home and have a look
at them. And also then they can explore what that result means for them. They find that
really useful.
I think online test results is a brilliant idea. It allows people to take ownership of
their medical conditions. They can see areas that they might want to address themselves.
They can look at past test results so that when they come in for their consultation they've
got a better idea of things that they want to address
One of the most important things to me about having rheumatoid arthritis is recognising
the need to self-manage, and one of the most important tools, in my self-management, is
the results, and having the results online: not only the current result but history too,
is a fantastic tool for me in that self-management process.