On September 19th, 2023, the amphitheatre at the Health Innovation South West offices in Exeter was the setting for discussions of innovation and collaboration, as we hosted the 3rd MySunrise Day. This annual event brought together over 40 healthcare professionals working in cancer care from across the Southwest and beyond. Providing a space for open discussions and invaluable feedback on the journey so far and the opportunities for future direction. In this blog post, we delve into the key highlights, insights, and the exciting prospects for the future direction of MySunrise.
MySunrise Day is a showcase of our work and vision to think differently about the challenges faced in cancer services and how pressures can be relieved, and patients empowered through our digital platform. We run this day as an opportunity to demo highlights of our work, but also to hear from teams some of the pressures faced and how the App can support and fit into workflow. This diverse group of delegates was able to share their insights and contribute to where they see the value in using a digital platform for their patients, as we work in collaboration and partnership with NHS Cancer Centres and Cancer Alliances.
We were thrilled to welcome a wide variety of healthcare professionals working in Cancer Care, including:
• Cancer Care Navigators and Support Workers from Primary and Secondary Care
• Cancer Nurse Specialists from across the South West
• Lead SACT Nurses
• Genomic teams and Practitioners
• Patient Representatives
• The Peninsula Cancer Alliance
... and many more!
We would like to extend our appreciation to everyone who was able to attend in sharing their time and insights, making MySunrise Day our most successful event to date.
“Thanks very much for inviting us to join the My Sunrise day on Tuesday - it was good to hear all of the good work that has been done so far and plans for the future. We really appreciated the chance to hear both the presentations and the discussions too.”
The day was kicked off by our Lead Nurse, Miranda Benney with a warm welcome to all the visiting delegates and our plans and objectives for the day, setting the stage for a series of enlightening presentations and discussions.
MySunrise founders, Dr George Brighton and Dr John McGrane, started the day by taking us on a journey from MySunrise's inception to where we are today - with a vision more relevant than ever before given the current pressures in the system. Highlighting the app's role in supporting oncology teams and patients going through cancer treatment and how over the last 3 years we have spent time listening and learning where the real value is in using our digital platform and how it has been designed with patients at the centre and to easily fit into service delivery. Finally celebrating the last three years of development and progress working with teams since the introduction of MySunrise across the peninsula and its recent expansion to other Cancer Centres across the country.
George then set out our vision and roadmap highlighting the key areas of focus and support for the MySunrise App going forwards, building on our work to date and introducing our plan for prehab and new Monitoring and Insights projects.
Data
User Experience Designer Pete Ridley, highlighted the significant data metrics of MySunrise, emphasising not only the app's growing uptake but also its promising impact on cancer care over the past three years. The presentation highlighted the really positive effects MySunrise has already started to demonstrate through digital cancer support.
One area we have seen real interest from Oncology teams is in supporting patients to better prepare for treatment and where possible enable out of hospital appointments and support. We see this involving prehabilitation resources and virtual pre-assessment supporting patients in preparing for SACT, radiotherapy and surgery. The first of our services in this area enables patients starting chemo or immunotherapy to have their pre-assessment or new patient talk virtually through the app out of hospital. This collaborative presentation by George Brighton, John McGrane, and Jeff Hutchinson from MSD provided a comprehensive overview of the virtual SACT pre-assessment (new patient talks) feature and how this is supporting the challenges of SACT capacity in the region. The trio highlighted benefits to patient, provider and net zero benefits as well as the potential advantages it holds as the service is launching across all trusts in the South West reflecting on the recent successful pilot in Cornwall.
'Amazing to see the virtual pre-assessment cuts the appointment time in half for staff and patients prefer it as they dont have to come into hospital pay for parking and risk exposing themselves to COVID or Flu or anything else they may be at risk as a more vulnerable cancer patient.'
There has been a lot of talk recently about virtual wards and how this is being delivered to teams across the NHS. The MySunrise team have been working on a virtual solution to support cancer patients on SACT treatment in the community for sometime now and it was a real pleasure to be able to showcase the first look at MySunrise Monitoring. This unique virtual solution enables teams to monitor patients on SACT in the community and through patient reported information about side effects and toxicity (ePROs), triage which patients need seeing and only bring those in that need review based on clinical priority. We hope this system can be expanded into other areas of oncology and follow up and look forward to working in partnership with teams to free up capacity.
Get in touch if you would like to find out more info@mysunrise.co.uk and stay tuned for more announcements about our virtual monitoring service including a Monitoring ePRO webinar coming soon on our website and social media channels!
Next was an opportunity to here from Miranda Benney about the remarkable progress in developing the Cancer Site Specific Pathways in the App. 12 months ago we set out with a mission to provide more targeted cancer specific support at the request of our patients. As cancer treatments become more complex it became aware from feedback from staff and patients that we needed to develop pathway support and information in the app specific to breast, colorectal, head and neck, lung, prostate and endometrial cancer.
Working with Clinical Advisors around the South West who have led on the information in these pathways we were thrilled to have 5 of them now live for our patients. This is a fantastic achievement and we are very grateful to the work of the Clinical Advisors for their support and advice in getting over the line. Miranda was able to share this progress and how the information in these pathways is designed to reflect the experiences patients are going through with their treating team. We look forward to sharing more progress in this area as things progress.
The afternoon session was a very interesting deep dive into the Future of Personalised Care from Lesley Smith, the Senior Programme Manager LWBC at NHSE, sharing her insights into work streams such as quality of life survey, annual planning guidance, stratified follow-up, end of treatment summaries and PFSU. Lesley was able to share some of her thoughts about innovations in these areas of personalised care. We were hugely grateful to Lesley to giving up her time to come and talk at MySunrise day and Lesley commended the teams across the peninsula for delivering HNAs and Personalised Care and Support Plans so effectively. It was fantastic to see the Peninsula as leading the way in PSFU and other areas. Following this presentation Lesley opened up a really useful discussion about how personalised care is supported and delivered across the Peninsula with a wide range of questions and input from the audience.
'You've asked me to talk about the future of personalised care... what I've been hearing this morning IS the future...'
Lesley Smith.
Next we heard from our Patient Representative Roland Monger, providing useful patient experiences and Feedback and who highlighted the importance of engaging with a wider and diverse range of patient groups to ensure MySunrise continues to be inclusive to all patients and their families. This provided an opportunity for useful input and suggestions from the audience about how we could ensure we are including a diverse range of patient groups and working towards the domains identified in the NHS England framework on digital inclusion.
MySunrise Associate, James Davies highlighted the importance of cancer care reviews in primary care and unveiled the upcoming MySunrise project aimed at supporting the delivery of Cancer care reviews through MySunrise and how cancer care coordinators and PCNs can make use of this excellent resource.
The day concluded with an engaging session on the potential for developing Prehabilitation resources on the platform, emphasising MySunrise's potentially pivotal role in these processes and capturing hugely valuable feedback from all present.
As we reflect on the success of MySunrise Day 2023, we are encouraged by the feedback from delegates and the growing recognition of the value of this platform in supporting Oncology teams and patients going through treatment. This invaluable feedback received will guide us as we continue to enhance the app and expand its reach to support more patients and their families. A big thank you to everyone who attended and contributed to the event.
Want to join us in our journey to improve cancer care through digital ? Follow us on our social media channels to stay updated on the latest developments, and share your thoughts and ideas with us as we shape the future of cancer support!
@MySunriseapp
Info@mysunrise.co.uk
