About Healthy Outlook®

Healthy Outlook® is a preventative service, aimed at helping people with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) stay well. The service helps patients with COPD manage their condition more effectively by warning them of periods of increased risk to their health.

There is a strong link between with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease hospital admissions and environment factors such as the weather and levels of circulating infections. The Healthy Outlook® COPD Forecast Alert, and associated anticipatory care, has been developed to use this knowledge to help prevent exacerbations and keep people out of hospital.

Current evidence indicates that the service can help reduce unplanned NHS contact and hospital admissions by around 20%.

The Healthy Outlook» Forecast Alert is based on a model, developed by the Met Office, to predict the risk of COPD hospital admissions. The main triggers are:

• Cold weather
• Virus load in the community
• Seasonal pattern

The service is typically commissioned by Primary Care Trusts and patients are recruited through GP practices.

Patients who consent to take the service will receive a comprehensive patient pack which outlines the actions they can take to keep themselves well. At times when there may be at greater risk of ill health the alert service reminds patients of these simple measures, via an interactive telephone call from the Met Office. This allows the early reporting of symptoms and ensures patients have sufficient medication.

The Met Office will inform practices before patients are called, and again after the calls are complete, so that practice staff can view patient responses to the interactive call questions.

The patient pack and calls are available in the following languages: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, English, Gujurati, Gurmukhi, Urdu and Welsh.

The service works via an easy to use web-based interface which is hosted within the NHS network, provided by Medixine. No software is installed locally and all patient data are stored within the NHS network secure server.

There is a one-off set-up fee and then the scheme is charged per person for the whole season.

If you would like to implement the service in your area or discuss it further, please complete our online form and one of our account managers will contact you.