Case Study : Using MyCommunity to consult diabetes sufferers
NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups have a responsibility to monitor and uphold care standards in UK GP surgeries and hospitals. As part of their work, CCG teams regularly survey patients within their district regions.
In 2014, Bath and North-East Somerset CCG faced a need to consult all 6,000 diabetes sufferers in the BANES area. Previous surveys hosted by the group had achieved poor response rates and results skewed towards certain patient demographics.
The Project
Communications Manager Barry Grimes and the BANES CCG team therefore contacted MyCommunity to help host a dual online/offline survey, seeking to drive up response rates and increase their data diversity.
As well as publishing and distributing printed copies of the diabetes survey to all 6,000 patients by post, the MyCommunity team supported Barry in uploading the survey to MyCommunity.net, hosted ‘privately’ and inaccessible to non-patients. All patients were provided with a URL to access the survey online.
MyCommunity boosted the diversity of the CCG’s results further by negotiating a set of free ‘rewards’ to incentivise patients to answer the survey. These rewards were provided free by local businesses focussed on health and fitness, and distributed via email by the MyCommunity team.
The Results
Having provided a freepost return envelope for the printed surveys, MyCommunity was on hand to process the CCG’s offline results with those gathered at MyCommunity.net, combining both in a single interactive digital report.
Based on the performance of their previous consultation campaigns, the CCG team anticipated receiving 250 survey responses. In three weeks, MyCommunity received 1350 – more than five times their expected return.
Because Barry’s team were able to actively monitor their results online, they could adapt their survey publicity effort in real time. MyCommunity.net provides the postcode location and an anonymised demographic profile of respondents while a survey is live. If no patient responses had been received from a certain region, Barry’s team knew to focus their promotional activity there; if responses were only being generated from a narrow age range or one gender, the team knew to redress the balance of their results.
Once their consultation had closed, Barry and his team were able to cut and splice the data in their MyCommunity digital report to reveal insights hidden by other consultation methods. This included how patients’ attitude to their condition was likely to change according to their age, location, profession and marital status.
What Happened Next?
The depth of insight now available to the CCG team means they can make more considered recommendations for diabetes care in their district. Barry and his team have since engaged MyCommunity to host a second health survey across BANES, this time on a much larger scale.
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