S8E5 Digital Revolution In Healthcare ===

Narrator: This podcast is intended to support UK healthcare professionals with education. The information provided in this podcast is not a substitute for professional medical advice or treatment, and patients are encouraged to consult healthcare providers, including nurses, for any medical questions or concerns.

Hannah: Welcome to stoma and continence conversations from Coloplast Professional, where healthcare professionals and experts by experience discuss the latest hot topics in the worlds of stoma, continence care and specialist practice. I'm Hannah Patterson. I've worked in specialist care and I'm currently the ostomy care associate education manager at Coloplast.

Today we are talking about the digital revolution in healthcare, and I'm joined by Head of Marketing at Heylo, Heylo Somerson, and Coloplast, Ostomy Ambassador, Sophie Pearce.

Sophie: Before this whole sort of Heylo thing came around, I was like, no, I'm fine, I'm confident, I've got my Routine gown to a tee, you know, I know what I'm doing with my bags, et cetera, et cetera.

And my word, am I going to need it? And it's simply for my confidence and mental health.

Adrian: Well, how do we then use digital to sort of look at, you know, research and show the impact that actually Heylo will have with people?

Sophie: So I'm Sophie, I'm an ambassador for Coloplast. I've had an ileostomy since 2020 due to ulcerative colitis.

Adrian: So I'm Adrian, I'm Head of Marketing for Heylo. I've been with Coloplast for the best part of a decade. I'm a nurse by background. Glad to be back here again, Hannah.

Hannah: Thank you so much. So as I said in the introduction, we're here to talk about the digital revolution in healthcare. And I know that's something we're speaking about quite a bit in different ways, obviously with the upcoming launch of Heylo, which we're all very excited about, which is of course very much looking at how digital is expanding.

But also we're looking at how in general, America's So what Sophie didn't mention there, Sophie actually works for the NHS as an assistant practitioner. Well you're, what's your official job title Sophie? I know it's a paramedic but it's uh, is it assistant?

Sophie: It's an emergency care support worker, so I work alongside paramedics, yeah.

Hannah: It's very similar to what I would call a health care assistant in the hospital, but out with the paramedics. You've seen as well how digital's changed within the NHS. A lot more people are using digital resources now with the NHS. I mean, even things like booking your doctor's appointment now can be done online, can't it?

Sophie: Yeah, you've got all the apps now, haven't you? The NHS app, you can book everything online, get your prescriptions online. Everything is You know, the majority of appointments now take place online.

Adrian: It's easy, isn't it? I think that's the thing behind it. I'm ever so slightly asthmatic, so I have to remember to periodically order new inhalers.

And I was always rubbish because I'm also busy. In real life, driving to and from the office and, you know, doctors opening hours aren't the best and phoning for prescriptions wasn't allowed anymore. And I could never turn up to write on the little piece of paper and stuff it in the door. So now I think, now that I can use the NHS app and go on and just go, okay, these are my repeat prescriptions.

Tick, box, send.

Sophie: It's a lot easier, isn't it?

Hannah: It is. And I don't know about you guys as well, but when it comes to prescriptions, I always tend to remember at the most inopportune of times, i. e. about 11 o'clock at night, that I need to pre order my prescription. And so, to have things more of a digital, hands on way is, like you said, Adrian, it's quicker, it's more convenient, it's as and when you want it.

And I'd say that's one thing that COVID did potentially have as a positive influence was. the use of more of this type of thing. So rather than having to rely on phone calls, things like that, it did encourage us to become a bit more digitally aware because you couldn't have that face to face contact.

You couldn't even try and get through on phones and things like that was much trickier. So actually having that digital access became a lifeline to a lot of people.

Sophie: I agree and disagree simply through working on the road and seeing the people that slip through the net. You know, that was what was quite frightening was the ones that were ringing and it was just sort of like, you'd be waiting for a phone call or waiting for a zoom call and then they're not, you know, when you haven't got that in person approach, there can be things that are missed, but at the same time, like you say, I think there are a lot of positives to it a lot.

But ways up both ways for me, seeing it from both sides, I think, as a patient, I think it's great, exactly like Adrian said, and like you said, I sat in bed last night and did a prescription at 11pm, literally, but then on the other, on the flip side, you know, when you've got, or the older generation who just don't work like that, they don't like modern technology and they don't want to do things over the phone and Zoom and everything, so.

Yeah, it's very, swings around a

Adrian: It's funny, isn't it? I think digital really works when it's stuff that's under your control. So, you know, if it's easy, if it means that I can do my shopping online, I can order my prescriptions, I can go and look for information. Because that's all kind of, that's all the kind of thing that's, that's under your control.

You have the ability to pick and choose what you're doing at that point. Then digital works really nicely. I think the point where you go. Actually, I'd quite like to see someone, I'd quite like to actually interact more than over a screen. Now, you know, we're having this conversation, it's, everyone can hear us audio, we can physically see each other, but it's not the same as being in the same room.

There is a different feeling in those consultations. I don't know if we had, if we were all wearing VR headsets to have this consultation, whether that would then feel different, it would feel like you're actually with someone, maybe that's the future.

Hannah: Yeah. But I think that's an important thing to think about though, is that actually digital revolution isn't here to replace.

It's to enhance what we've got. So it's not looking at reinventing the wheel from the point of view that we're going to never look at a face to face contact with patients or customers ever again, but actually it's an added benefit rather than taking away. And I think that's why digital revolution as a whole.

I mean, I always think of people with the, I know you're really good on the names, Adrian, is it the. The Freestyle Libra and the Dexcom.

Adrian: The Freestyle Libra and Dexcom are sort of the blood sugar sort of monitoring devices.

Hannah: They are really clever, aren't they? So clever, so clever. And a lot of people with diabetes, for them, that's been a real game changer.

It's been an absolute godsend for them.

Sophie: Yes, like moving forward, yeah, they're a really good idea because it saves all those, you know, those appointments of going in and getting blood glucose levels. managed that way. They're literally doing it themselves now, aren't they?

Adrian: I think it's the convenience.

There's definitely not the convenience. It's the, you know, as a district nurse, I would quite regularly, for a proportion of people, turn up at people's houses, you know, two or three times a day, and we would be doing their blood sugars for them because they couldn't do them themselves, and you're recording, and you're checking, and you can see that there's a huge population whereby that has made them Self manage or help them self manage quite what the adoption looks like I think would be interesting to look at

Sophie: My father in law's got an ICD in his heart, which all automatically tracks through to St.

George's Hospital, you know, everything is all he wouldn't know anything So if he's got anything sort of dodgy going on It's all tracking their end and they're picking up on everything that's going on it. Yeah, it is It's, it's really quite, um, it's really quite a clever way of going forward with things.

Hannah: And I say it often picks up on things before you do as the, as the patient almost. I mean, I say the readings are being sent direct to the hospital. They're probably giving him a call going, are you okay? Because some things happen that he's not even been aware of. And the same with things like this Freestyle Libra.

You know, it gives people alerts, almost getting there ahead of time.

Adrian: It's certainly one of the things that when I look at, you know, Heylo and as we look to sort of bring that, that out in the year where we're, you know, we're working hard on sort of having our conversations with drug tariff about what that looks like in the future as part of it, you go, well, how does this work?

And how does this make a difference for people? What are sort of the problems that, you know, Heylo will potentially solve or how does that impact people in sort of Day to day life and that's quite a, it's quite an adventure to kind of be looking at, okay, what, what does this mean? What's this going to mean for people in real life?

We have studies and we have, you know, I've spoken to you before about it, Sophie, in terms of what we think Heylo will do, but the real adventure begins in the not too distant future when we're able to start using it and learning about it. And you go, what does digital mean in practice? That's the fun part.

Hannah: And I think it will be very similar for people with stomas as what it is for people with diabetes. I think it will be that lifeline for some people. It will. Yeah, it really will. And it comes back to what we say, it's not going to replace the stoma nurse. And we're not even going out on the women's side, we're going to stop leakages and things like that.

But it's that patient confidence that's, that's the big thing for me. And I always say, you know, as someone that had a stoma myself, one of my biggest overall fears was. Leakage. And I know that Sophie, you had some bad issues with leakage recently. You were talking to me about it and

Sophie: Well, do you know what?

Before this whole sort of Heylo thing came around, I genuinely, and I even told Heylo, I was like, No, I'm fine. I'm confident. I've got my routine down to a T. You know, I know what I'm doing with my bags, et cetera, et cetera. And then actually, the more and more we've, you know, Heylo's evolved and I'm learning more about it and I've gotten to touch, feel, suss out all the product, everything.

I'm thinking My life is consumed with thoughts of leaks, you know, from the moment I get up till I go to bed and even then it doesn't stop I still wake up numerous times throughout the night checking my bag quickly or it's going to definitely impact people in different ways and I was on these, you know, you all know, sit there and probably laugh at me now when I said, no, I'm not going to want Heylo.

I'm not going to need that. And my word, am I going to need it? And it's simply for my confidence and mental health. Cause yeah, I had a leak a few weeks back and it just, it was my first one in absolute ages. And it just threw me and it didn't the, the leak. I was fine. I could manage it. You know, it was in the middle of the night, but it's fine.

I managed to get up, sort myself out, deal with the leak. It was the after effect. It was the constant every day after I then didn't want to go out. I didn't want to do anything because the fear I was like, if this happens to me, I don't care if it happens at home. I'm in my. You know, safe space. But if I'm out, I'm, yeah, it takes me back now to pre stoma, all the accidents I had in public, that total and utter humiliation that I used to have to try and hide every time and run through a shopping mall or run through my kids playground, having had an accident, you know, all these sort of things.

And it's going to be an incredible product for so many reasons for different people.

Hannah: Absolutely. And I'm so glad you spoke about mental health. Thanks. I think and Adrian will agree with me here. That's what we're really trying to sort of talk about. It's that mental impact that it has on people that worry and burden of leakage.

It takes one experience. And that can set how you're at. Mine was very early days after I got out of hospital. And after that I never really slept again. It was that mental thing for me that I was constantly worrying about it. I almost liken it to, when you drive a car, you put your safety features in your car, like your airbags and things like that.

You might hopefully never need the airbags and things like that. But the fact that, you know, they're there in an accident, I know what I'd rather get in a car that's got all the safety features in an airbag than one that's like a tin can with nothing. I know what would make me feel more safe and secure when I'm driving.

For me, having something that's. Going to give me that reassurance is a massive thing.

Sophie: Yeah. And that's what I said to you before, Adrian. I think that's what's got to be really pushed in, you know, GP field more understanding the mental impact. I fear that people will be sort of refuse this product because, you know, you'll get the odd GP like, well, you don't suffer leaks.

It's like, no, that's not what it's about. It's about the mental impact as well. Like, and this really will help so many people with that. You know, like I wouldn't dream of wearing again, white trousers. And I'd love to, you know, in the summer, just wear, you know, your nice white flowy linen trousers. But I'm terrified of thinking, Do I leak?

That's quite catastrophic in white trousers. Whereas You know, if Heylo comes in, you've got your little warning to say, Oi, something's about to happen. I

know it's a bit more technical than that.

Adrian: It's, it is a little bit more technical than that. But on principle, not much more technical than that.

Hannah: I was thinking of like on the underground, like mind the gap, please.

It's like a mind the gap thing.

Adrian: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it does, it does, it does go ping and you can choose the ping. But I do think the whole sort of mental health aspect actually is, is one that. I don't think it is talked about, but there's so much normalization in terms of, of course, you're going to be worried about having a leak because, you know, you're walking with the stoma bag and, you know, we're all a little bit unpredictable.

We do different things. We do different activities. Sometimes we're hot. Sometimes we're rushing when we change all, all of those kinds of things kind of come into play. And so that voice of. Being slightly worried that internal monologue that turns up seems to be quite normalized and no one really sort of thinks about what is the impact of it?

What's it and what can it be like to live without having to be second guessing all the time? Because no one's ever had anything that does that. And it's something that the back on piece that sort of the digital revolution allows us to kind of. Do to give that control back to have something that checks so that you don't have to.

Hannah: Well I think you said so it's about putting the patient back in control about and I think when you have had leaks and things like that That's one thing you completely do feel is out of control but to Be able to get some control back.

And like you said Adrian, the digital revolution does allow some form of control. And we've even said with control as to when you can order your prescriptions, control with when you can book an appointment. It's all things like that, that the digital side of things does give back a bit of patient empowerment, a bit of patient control.

Adrian: One of the things that has been quite interesting for us as a learn was that we were looking at some of the data and we've got some people who've been using Heylo in Germany for the last few years. And we were able to look at how much they're using Heylo, the app and picking it up and checking it.

Because it's one of the things I've heard is that actually people will go from checking their stoma to checking the app all the time. Yeah. I'm going to check the app. And one of the things about the app is, is it goes pings if something goes wrong. If nothing's going wrong, it doesn't do anything. And what you see over time is you see the people pick up and look at the app less and less and less and less and less because you don't need to.

So there's not the reliance of actually I'm swapping checking one thing to checking another thing because I'm going from checking one thing to actually I don't need to check. I need to, yeah. And that's a really nice thing to see, because it becomes that safety net, it becomes that uh, I think I've heard you use the word before, kind of like that security blanket, that knowing everything's all right, something's watching out for me.

And technology enables that to happen, and, and we couldn't have done this five years ago.

Sophie: I think it will free so much mental space for people as well, you know, because I can say for me, it does take up a huge amount of brain space, as I would say, you know, because I'm subconsciously thinking about it all the time, and yeah, it'll be great when, like you say, I probably will be one of those people that will constantly check the app at first, like, why are you not telling me there's something wrong?

But then, in time, it'll be like, well, okay, there clearly isn't something wrong until you tell me there is, so.

Adrian: We use the digital stuff that works for us as well. I downloaded NASMAP, which I used really regularly for about a week. Uh, and then actually because it wasn't really giving me any benefits, it was basically just a big calendar.

I stopped. And I think for people who really benefit from Heylo, they'll use it and become part of their routine. There'll be other people out there who'll go, actually, I'm perfectly in control at the moment. And actually, I'm not worried. And actually, I'm busy living my, my best life. My, my stoma's beautiful.

I don't have leaks. My routines. wonderful.

Sophie: Was that not me up until a few weeks ago? Yeah,

Hannah: yeah.

Adrian: But also people change. Yeah. But for some people, they will go, Actually, I won't need Heylo, and that would be cool. And fathers will be like, Actually, this fits into part of my routine. It's part of my, it's part of my armory.

It's part of the things that I need, whether it's all the time or some of the time. It makes a difference in the right place.

Hannah: Coloplast Professional offers a lot of educational material for specialists, nurses, and healthcare professionals. Visit coloplastprofessional. co. uk to find out more.

Again, it goes back to that patient empowerment, I think, the fact that It's not going to work for everybody, but for some people, it will be that absolute life changer.

Adrian: And, and part of that is, and we, as we start talking digital and we talk Heylo, you know, part of our, you know, the plans going forward will be, well, how do we then use digital to sort of look at, you know, research and show the impact that actually Heylo will have with people? You know, how can we demonstrate the impact that Heylo has in the NHS?

How do you conduct research in this, in this world? We're very much in our planning stage for how do we show and we evidence increasingly the impact of Heylo. And that's digital revolution helps with that as well. You know, we have huge online space and forms to bring people together and to engage in ways which we never could before.

Hannah: And even then, you look at things like social media and that, and you'll see hopefully when we get that, the impact that something like Heylo will have on people on social media again. And that's when you're looking at how digital feedback's coming in, because we'll get positive feedback off social media and that will show, I'm sure Sophie, you'll be shouting about it from the rooftops on your socials.

Sophie: As always, I definitely think that because that's one of the things I do get inundated messages from people about leaks and they're just like, how can I stop this? And, you know, and I give all the advice that I've got from personal experience, but yeah, it's going to definitely be something that you can see people are just going to be like, wow.

It'd be a big platform to show how it's working for a lot of ostomates I think.

Adrian: Social media has, I think, it's changed the way we find information and we find people who are like us or people who are interested in the same kind of things. Whichever way you look at it, it's changed the way we behave.

As people, you know, I think we scroll through the reels. I, I, I do actually learn actual things off of Instagram, which sounds slightly ridiculous, but it's not, you know, I learned a really cool thing about being able to, you know, use the space bar as a mouse key on your phone. I'm like, that's really cool.

I didn't know that. I didn't know that. If you hold down the spacebar on your phone, and if you could see this, you'd see me doing that. It turns, instead of being a, it turns into a cursor and then you can use it as a mouse key instead.

Hannah: That is amazing.

Adrian: It's really cool.

Hannah: Every day is a school day.

Adrian: Yeah. And I learned, I learned that on ins, learned that on Insta.

Sophie: I have used platforms like in Instagram and not so much Facebook, but both of them for all of my research. You know, not, um, official medical advice, but you know, even learning about. Living with a stoma. Before I got one, I knew nothing. I didn't know anyone with a stoma. I didn't know anything about them.

I'd, naively, I didn't even know what they were. Even when I went out to jobs on the road, I'd sort of be like, Oh, that's a stoma. Not really knowing the ins and outs. And it was all through those platforms that I've just learned everything. And that's why I give everything I can back now by They might be my silly little videos, as some call them, but it's like, you know, it's still a little bit of education that's personal, from personal experience.

And I think that's what you do learn from, you know, I'm, I'm a lot better with stuff like that than giving me a textbook. I'm not going to learn anything about stonemasons if you throw a textbook at me.

Hannah: And I think it goes to people wanting to See people that have got real life experiences as well, you could, I know that you'll probably remember Sophie, when you first had your stoma, you get given like half a tree's worth of paperwork.

Literally. And it's got pictures of people that you don't relate to at all on there, and then it's just like you said, Heylo, you can almost then, when you go on social media, you can cherry pick people that you, Relate to. So you will get people on social media finding people that relate to them, whether it be because they're the same sort of age as you, similar experiences to you, you'll find somebody then that you relate to and you feel that you can understand and empathize with them on that level then, and that's something you never really had before.

So I have got a couple of statistics which just shows how digital engagement has, I don't know if improved is the right word, but increased over the last few years. So as of December last year, 2023, over 75 percent of adults in England have got the NHS app. That's a huge amount of people to me. Then this is another good one I thought, which goes back to what we were saying earlier.

3. 1 million repeat prescriptions were ordered in December 2023, and that was an increase of 44 percent since December 2022. So in 12 months there was an increase of 44%. So that's showing there is that adaption and that engagement there. Either that or people are just needing more repeat prescriptions. I don't know.

Sophie: No, but then it does show, doesn't it? How much more engaged people are in using.

Adrian: It is also worth, worth going that it isn't everywhere. It's quite easy to kind of go, actually everybody's online and internet access is there. And I think. You could start to generalize and go, well, older people, I've got a 90 year old dad who posts on Facebook and, you know, appropriately, you know, not even randomly, he uses it right, you know, like people should.

So it's good. But, you know, you do see there's, um, there's an organization called the good things foundation. I think I mentioned on the webinar as well, which is an organization who just sort of looks at digital inequalities and where and how people don't access. And they do talk about, you know, access to the internet as being.

A marker for health inequalities. Now most people, it seems that those people who don't have the internet, they do seem to go smartphones as their kind of their way of access, so they may not have broadband or wireless at home. And they'll use their phones to do that. It's interesting that you look at where people aren't online.

And if you look at them, 20 percent of people go, I don't go online because it's too complicated. It's just, it's just too hard for me, 20 percent say it costs too much, and then 70%, so there must be some overlap here, say they're just not interested, the internet for them is just, they're just not bothered.

Yeah, yeah. And I, you can see that in terms of, you know, making life, you know, simplicity. You hear it sometimes only from, um, the, off of the famouses. Who are on TV going, actually, I no longer have a phone because I don't want to be on. I don't want to be in it. It's all too noisy. It's all too much. I'd much rather be rooted.

And you can see for some people, simplicity takes you away from that.

Hannah: Well, thank you ever so much, guys. It's been, I always like going down these, I know we went off on a few tangents about things, but I think it's such a broad spectrum topic, digital, that, and I don't think I necessarily realized until I started looking into this, how much we do use digital with social media and things like that, that.

Even that compared to what it was in, there was things like Facebook around when I had my stoma, but there wasn't Instagram, and there certainly wasn't the likes of yourself, Sophie, around that you can reach out to for support and things like that. So. The fact that Digital Revolution is there to help and support patients, not just in products, but also out there in general, I think is really, really good.

Adrian: And we haven't even touched on, you know, AI and robots and, you know, robotic surgery and all, all of these myriad of

Hannah: Oh, completely blows my mind. I'm only just getting my head around people being able to do things, never mind robots. So, don't even go down there. That would be my mind blown, utterly. But, thank you ever so much, and to everyone listening, we'll see you next time.

Thank you for listening.

Narrator: To see more of the wide variety of education we offer, please visit coloplastprofessional. co. uk. See you next time. Stoma and Continence Conversations is a Vibrant Sound Media production for Coloplast Professional.