ViiV Healthcare and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital continue their innovation partnership to launch new digital services to transform HIV patient care

London, 18^th January 2021 - ViiV Healthcare and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust are continuing their innovative partnership to transform HIV patient care with the launch of a new service, Klick, which leverages digital technology to provide patients with improved access to the most appropriate care. Created under a Joint Working Agreement, Klick uses digital clinic tools to triage patients according to clinical need and is supported by a mobile app allowing patients to manage appointments, complete health assessments, review results and communicate with their healthcare team.

The new service is being gradually launched to patients at the Kobler Outpatient Clinic, one of the largest centres of HIV care in Europe and is then planned to expand to larger patient populations across multiple sites at the Trust in the coming months. The launch follows impressive results generated through a pilot, also in the form of a Joint Working Agreement, which were presented at last year’s British HIV Association (BHIVA) Annual Congress¹ and demonstrated exceptionally high levels of patient satisfaction and quality of care.

Dr Thomas Van Every, Global Medical Affairs Director at ViiV Healthcare, said: “All too often, innovations in healthcare fail when placed into the complex environment of a health system. ViiV Healthcare’s innovation specialists design solutions which leverage technology but are also rooted in the science of implementation. This demonstrates our commitment to understanding the drivers and barriers to implementing innovations in real-world settings. Our partnership with Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has combined experience in innovation with delivering quality care to patients within the NHS. The output is a robustly tested service for HIV patients, designed to be fit for the future of HIV care.”

Klick has also been designed to respond to the current demands on HIV healthcare services brought by the COVID-19 pandemic allowing outpatient clinics to rapidly evaluate clinical needs, provide access to care remotely and communicate effectively with patients. The design and implementation of the service has been led by a project team comprising individuals from ViiV Healthcare’s innovation team, along with clinical and non-clinical staff from the Kobler Clinic. The service has been designed with a focus on ensuring digital solutions can integrate with and enhance the service model, whilst delivering a positive experience for patients.

Dr David Asboe, Clinical Director for HIV at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, added: “We have made significant advances in the care of people living with HIV, but this work is not finished. In many regards, it has just begun. Our combined efforts have shifted HIV from an acute to a predominantly long-term condition. This brings its own challenges and responsibilities. It is our duty to understand the emerging needs of our patient cohort, to design care that is responsive to these needs, and to provide care in a sustainable fashion. We must achieve these things with a backdrop of the challenges we now also face with COVID-19. Health systems are under more pressure than ever and using new technologies in a way that genuinely enables our services to evolve is absolutely critical to ensuring we can continue to improve how we deliver quality care to our patients. The collaboration between the Trust and ViiV Healthcare has provided an opportunity to produce an evidence-based and practical service concept that provides a strong platform on which we can build.”