Maternity Direct
A secure telehealth app connecting pregnant women with NHS midwivesMaternity Direct is a secure telehealth app connecting a pregnant woman with a registered NHS midwife to answer non-urgent queries by text chat.
Acadiant developed Maternity Direct in partnership with Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust to help address pregnant women’s concerns and to ensure they have accurate, timely information in the long gap between antenatal appointments.
Maternity Direct scales NHS resources by reducing unnecessary Midwifery, Maternity, GP and A&E attendances for simpler queries. Moreover, midwives can easily text chat with 4 or 5 women in the time it takes for a single telephone or video call. Completed chats, with a full audit trail, are then stored in the Trust’s electronic medical record for future reference.
Maternity Direct runs on any smartphone, tablet, or laptop and works on any operating system.
For a demo, contact maternity@acadiant.com
Maternity Direct, Patient's View
Maternity Direct won “Highly Commended” for Workforce Innovation at the HSJ Partnership Awards 2021 for helping better scale midwifery resources.
Outcomes
Maternity Direct has had over 20,000 registered users since it was first deployed at Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust in August 2019. About 80 percent of women surveyed said Maternity Direct saved them from using another NHS service, such as visiting a Community Midwife, the Maternity Assessment Centre, or their GP. An additional 30,000 anonymous guests have logged on to read the daily Health Information posted by the midwives.
Features for Women and Midwives
My Chat. A secure text chat between a woman and an NHS registered midwife, who can see the woman’s e-referral form and pregnancy history before their chat begins.
For the woman. The chats offer easy, quick access to a trusted midwifery professional and privacy to conduct discreet text chats with midwives.
For the midwife. The midwife can access the woman’s e-referral form to review the woman’s pregnancy history and medical conditions, as well as see her chat history with any midwife conducted on the app. When a woman starts a chat, the midwife on duty knows exactly who she’s talking to, providing assurance to both woman and midwife.
My Personal Care Plan. A digitised interactive version of the Personal Care Plan allows a woman to record her individual choices and decisions over the course of her pregnancy. It is designed for both women and midwives to contribute asynchronously, with read-only access to each other’s responses. This helps Trusts meet the NHS England goal that all pregnant women have a personalised care plan.
For the woman. A chance to consider all aspects of her pregnancy from conception through early parenthood, and to record her questions, choices, concerns and decisions in an easy-to-use digital format.
For the midwife. An easy-to-use digital format to discuss a woman’s choices and respond to any questions about her pregnancy.
Health Information. Relevant information on pregnancy and general health, under the control of the Trust’s midwives to easily curate, schedule, and upload timely information from local, regional and national sources.
For the woman. Updated information about a variety of relevant themes available for her to access at any time. The Health Information is available for guests to access, so family members and friends can also benefit.
For the midwife. A broadcast platform to push out news and information that does not need a one-to-one chat.
For the guest. Partners, family, and friends can freely access Health Information about maternal health, diet and exercise, labour, feeding, and other relevant topics.
Maternity Direct, Health Information
My appointments. Maternity Direct interoperates with a hospital’s appointment system to automate appointment reminders and help minimise Did Not Attends.
For the woman. Ability to see her hospital scan appointments at a glance and download them into her personal calendar.
For the midwife. Assurance that the woman has her hospital appointment dates and times at hand and knows when to come in for her scans.
Net Zero NHS. Maternity Direct contributes to the aim of delivering a Net Zero NHS through enabling remote work and minimising unnecessary travel, and reducing reliance on office paper.
"The personalised care plan provides an ideal opportunity to develop strategies to help each woman manage her own health and in so doing ensure the best outcome for her baby."
Benefits for Midwives
Remote work. As a telehealth app, Maternity Direct supports midwives working flexibly and remotely, consistent with the NHS People Plan which advocates embracing new ways of working, supported by technology.
Efficient use of midwife’s time. A midwife can conduct several chats in the time she would usually spend on a single telephone phone call. Chats are conducted asynchronously, so she can prioritise the more urgent and important issues. A library of saved responses and relevant links helps minimise typing to allow the midwife to focus on the woman.
Midwife Group Chat. Group chat functionality enables midwives to consult with each other on tricky queries and to manage handovers.
Supervision and assurance. Chats can be supervised in real time. All live and closed chats are visible to any authorised midwife or supervisor, for training and quality improvement.
Maternity Direct, Midwife's View
Benefits for Trusts
Cost savings for the Trust and the ICS. A case study by MSE Strategy Unit indicated Maternity Direct can lead to significant cost savings for the Trust and the ICS.
Control. Maternity Direct is under the Trust’s control. The Trust manages the e-referral system and provides women with the link to the app. There’s no need to go through any app store to download the app; the Trust is the highest authority.
Better scales NHS resources. Unlike phone calls or in-person appointments, text chats are asynchronous, so a midwife can interact with several women at a time. Analytics indicate busiest times and days to help in workforce planning.
Full immutable audit trail. Maternity Direct chats are stored in the Trust’s electronic medical record or other database and can be consulted to confirm advice given.
Data insights and analytics. Maternity Direct will help generate insights by providing full analytic dashboards covering themes, outcomes, heaviest traffic (by day and hour) number of users and chats, survey results and feedback.
Flexible customised content. Content and logos are flexible and can be customised to meet your Trust’s needs.
Simplified procurement. Maternity Direct has been awarded a place on Crown Commercial Service’s G-Cloud 13 Framework facilitating faster, easier, compliant public sector procurement.
Maternity Direct, Chat Summary Dashboard
How to Download the Maternity Direct App onto your phone
By 2023/24, all women will be able to access their maternity notes and information through their smartphones or other devices.
NHS Long Term Plan
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