Low cost "commercial off-the-shelf" software in busy pain clinic

Published Date: 08th June 2018

Publication Authors: Clayton J, Levshankov K

Objectives

Online based surveys offer unprecedented degree of flexibility to a physician conducting audit of their patients' experiences after clinical intervention. They also enhance patient's experience by offering a convenient process to feedback their progress to their treating physician. The physician's affiliating organisation benefits too by employing a low cost alternative to postal questionnaires, telephone or face to face based interviewing. The objective of the study was to compare a low cost "commercial off-the-shelf" (COTS) software with traditional paper questionnaire and telephone based surveys in a busy Pain Clinic. 

Methods

We developed a scoring system to assess features of the survey, patient's acceptance, ease of administering, deployment and maintenance costs of different surveillance processes. We used this system to compare traditional and online based software packages to select one suitable to implement, with minimal modification, into our busy clinical practice 

Results

Our scoring system promoted objective selection of the winning software to satisfy our clinical practice needs as well as our hospital financial requirements. COTS demon-strated clear advantages in all areas of scoring process compared to more traditional surveys. 

Conclusions

We achieved considerable cost savings while improving patient experience through our objective selection process and trial of COTS.

 

Levshankov, K; Clayton, J. (2018). Low cost "commercial off-the-shelf" software in busy pain clinic . Pain Practice. 18 (Suppl S1), 78.

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