Patients Know Best (PKB), is partnering with the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society (NRAS) – the leading charity supporting people affected by Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) across the UK – to create a ‘patient portal’ which will lead to better care and greater support for all those with RA.

Powered by Patients Know Best – the world’s only fully patient-controlled medical records system – the new NRAS digital portal will provide RA patients with a facility to gain support and ensure their full medical records are in one easy-to-access location.

The complex nature of Rheumatoid Arthritis means that patients are often treated by multiple health professionals and teams in different locations – this can result in fragmented care. The new portal will enable RA patients to join up the medical and third sector support – ensuring that everyone has a single, current version of a patient’s medical record and care plan. 

Ailsa Bosworth MBE, chief executive of NRAS said:

There are two broad reasons why we’re excited to be working with PKB on this patient portal – firstly, because we think it can have significant practical health benefits to RA patients and secondly, because it very much fits in with our ethos. We’ve long been banging the drum for patient control and we feel that our partnership with Patients Know Best is a natural extension to our mission to support RA patients at every step of their journey and empower them to take control of their condition. In addition, PKB will allow us to reach patients to provide them with crucial third sector support so clinical teams can focus on providing direct care as we provide educational content, links, care plans and access to our wide range of support services.

The NRAS patient portal will also include a secure Skype and messaging functionality which will enable patients to hold online consultations with healthcare teams rather than having to attend face-to-face consultations – a time-consuming inconvenience to many patients.

Dr Mohammad Al-Ubaydli, founder and CEO of Patients Know Best said:

Charities and patient support organisations like NRAS are coming to Patients Know Best because they know that our patient-controlled approach can help them better reach, support and serve their patient groups. Through their new PKB portal, health professionals and third sector providers will receive more information and be kept better informed about the health of their patient – meaning they can provide better, more rounded care. We’re delighted to be working with NRAS and look forward to helping them develop the service they can provide.

About NRAS/RA

• NRAS is the only patient-led organization focusing specifically on Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis.
• RA affects approximately 690,000 people in the UK. Rheumatoid arthritis is a complex and serious, systemic autoimmune condition where the immune system attacks the joint tissue causing inflammation, stiffness, pain and extreme fatigue.
•  Uncontrolled RA can cause premature mortality.
•  It affects more women who are up to 3 times more likely to get it and can occur at any age post 16 years, although onset is most common after the age of 40.
•  The mission of NRAS is to: support all with RA or JIA to live life to the full and our vision is to support everyone living with the impact of RA or JIA at the start and every step of their journey to inform – be their first choice for reliable information, and empower all to have a voice and take control of their RA or JIA.
• NRAS is a certified member of The Information Standard, an independent certification scheme for health and social care information, supported by NHS England. The quality mark is a quick and easy way for the public to identify reliable and trustworthy sources of information.

About Patients Know Best

Patients Know Best is the world’s first fully patient-controlled online medical records system and a multi-award winning tool to help patients better manage their care. Patients Know Best is fully secure and enables patients to better organise, manage and control their own health care provision – it also saves the time of physicians through allowing secure, online consultations. Patients Know Best’s first customers include Great Ormond Street Hospital, St Mark’s Hospital and NHS South Devon. Patients Know Best integrates fully into the NHS N3 secure network and is available for use by any patient with any clinician anywhere in the world. It is now used by over 60 hospitals across seven countries and complies fully with UK NHS information governance requirements as well as the EU Data Protection Act and US HIPAA legislation for dealing with medical data. www.patientsknowbest.com

Awards include:

• February 2016: Axa PPP Health Tech & You Overall Category Winner – Champion Award.
• October 2015: E-Health Insider Award, ‘Best Use of Technology to Share Information with Patients and Carers’.
• September 2015: Awarded a ‘founding member’ of BCorporation.
• June 2015: One of 17 companies chosen for NHS England’s Digital Health Accelerator Programme.
• May 2015: Received ‘Champion’ award at the eHealth Competition, a Europe-wide, European Commission-backed prize.