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Concentric Health - a Trusted Information Creator

When you hear the term ‘content creator’ in 2023 - it may conjure up images of a teenager making videos of the latest TikTok dances, or an Instagram influencer filming their latest Reel. Ok, fine. We’ll admit that we aren’t that type of content creator - but rather creators of trusted health information.

The PIF TICK

The PIF TICK is the UK’s independently-assessed quality mark for trusted health information and is run by the Patient Information Forum (PIF). PIF is a membership organisation for people and organisations who produce health information, promoting access to trusted health information for patients, carers, the public and healthcare professionals.

PIF’s vision is that “Everyone has access to personalised health information and support to enable them to make informed decisions about their health, wellbeing and care.” - which aligns closely with our vision at Concentric.

The assessment involved an evaluation of our information production process, meaning we’ve had to demonstrate how we meet the following 10 requirements:

  • Information is created using a consistent and documented process.
  • Staff receive ongoing training and support.
  • Resources meet a genuine need.
  • Information is based on reliable, up-to-date evidence which is communicated clearly.
  • Users are involved in the development of information.
  • Information is written to meet health and digital literacy, language and accessibility needs of the target audience.
  • Information is clearly communicated, and is easy to access and navigate.
  • There is a clear process for users to provide feedback.
  • Information is promoted to maximise reach.
  • The impact of information is measured.

All of this means that patients and clinicians can be assured that content created by Concentric is evidence-based, understandable, jargon-free, up-to-date and produced to the highest possible standard.

Introducing PIF to Git!

Can we get a little technical? Only a little, stick with us!

At Concentric we have a particular challenge around content, stemming from the fact that we have a huge amount of content (about half a million lines of content in total!), the medicolegal requirements around content mean that we need to know exactly which version of content a patient has received, and healthcare organisations can customise their consent information should they wish to.

The way we manage this complexity is by using ‘git’. Git is a version control system that is widely used within software development, allowing teams of developers to work on a codebase at the same time, and manages lots of different complexities, for example, what changes are ready to be deployed to users.

We can also use this same technology and tooling for managing content. This means that as a team of clinicians we can be working independently on different elements of content, prepare these for review, and then have a process around the approval of content into the main ‘master’ version. Importantly it also means that we can know exactly (to the letter) the state of the ontology at any point in time, and can link this to the version of the content that was shared with a patient.

Without ‘git’ (or another similar technology), managing healthcare organisations’ customisations would be significantly more complex. The principle is that organisations can, should they wish to, personalise certain elements of content - for example, to add a risk to a specific treatment template. Git allows us to maintain this personalisation, whilst still allowing the healthcare organisation to benefit from the other updates to the ontology (such as new templates or updates based on evolving evidence).

This process was new to the PIF team, so we were a little apprehensive about whether it would be met with uncertainty, but we were impressed with how the PIF team engaged with understanding the process and appreciated the robustness of the approach.

Learning through evaluation

Through the preparation and evaluation phases of accreditation we’ve made a few improvements to our processes.

The PIF Tick process came at a time when we have been broadening the number of clinicians reviewing and adding content at Concentric, and as a consequence of both, it was clear that we need to document more thoroughly the rationale for modification, and reasons for decisions made. This has made the audit trail of changes more robust and will help with review cycles as it may be a different clinician who is reviewing the template next time around (not a problem in the early days of having just one clinician editing content!)

We also realised that our clinician onboarding process would benefit from increased formalisation - one of the newer team members wasn’t aware that we were following many of the principles laid out in the NHS Content style guide.

The PIF Tick is an annual evaluation and we look forward to working with the team over the years, collaboratively looking for improvements for the benefit of our patient and clinician users.

Get in touch

If you have any questions about the content on Concentric, our PIF TICK certification or anything else Concentric related, please get in touch at patrick@concentric.health.