BSPED2025 Poster Presentations Miscellaneous/Other 2 (9 abstracts)
Digital poverty – barriers to care: a departmental experience
Bryan Padraig Finn 1 , Eleni Pissaridou 2 , Sally Tollerfield 1,2 , Ewart J Sheldon 2 , Victoria Stevens 2 , Mohsin Shah 2 , Rossa Brugha 2 , Donna-Louise Richardson 3,4 , Sam Wade 1 , Abigail Atterbury-Todd 1 , Rakesh Amin 1 , Hoong-Wei Gan 1 , Catherine Peters 1 & Harshini Katugampola 1,5
1Department of Endocrinology, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom; 2Data Research, Innovation and Virtual Environments Unit (DRIVE), Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust, UK, London, United Kingdom; 3Central Bookings Office, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom; 4Health Inequalities Board, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom; 5Genetics & Genomic Medicine, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, London, United Kingdom
Background: Digital innovation at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital (GOSH) has led to an unprecedented amount of support for families from direct messaging systems to electronic access in real time to results & letters. This unfortunately can result in a widening gap in the care provided to families who are digitally ‘rich’ in terms of access to devices and the ability to utilise these supports compared with those who face socio-economic and language barriers.
Aims and Objectives: We set out to ascertain the nature and extent of these barriers families face when accessing digital services. Alongside this, we describe the measures our trust has taken to support families.
Methods: We carried out a mixed-methods study with a retrospective analysis of all patients under the care of the endocrinology department from 18/04/2019 – 01/07/2025, by analysing our electronic healthcare record using the ‘PICTURE’ data platform.
Results: There were 10,913 patients under the care of our team during the study period, with two subgroups for congenital hyperinsulinism (CHI) (n = 901) and congenital hypothyroidism (CHT) (n = 807). Of the general endocrine cohort, 39% were white British with 72% self-reporting English as their first language, with 74 other primary languages identified. Although only 8.88% of our CHI and 9.12% of our CHT cohorts attended their first visit via telemedicine, 55% & 60% respectively, avail of follow up telemedicine visits. Using IMD (Index of multiple deprivation) deciles, we have identified that 44% of our CHT cohort, are especially vulnerable, in the bottom 30% of this range. 90% of our endocrinology patients are signed up to our ‘MyGOSH’ app, a digital innovation which allows families to access specific parts of their electronic record. Our department has incorporated a digital poverty screening tool to be used by our central booking office team to identify the needs of families.
Conclusions: Our results demonstrate that there are identifiable cohorts with ongoing barriers to accessing our digital support services. In collaboration with the health inequalities board, our trust offers SIM cards and donated devices. Furthermore, our inpatient ‘MyGOSH’ app – ‘MyGOSH Bedside’ will allow families equitable access using bedside screens during their inpatient stays.
Volume 111
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Endocrine Abstracts
ISSN 1470-3947 (print) | ISSN 1479-6848 (online)
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