Building Community Healthcare Around Everyday Conversations
What if care could continue between visits, in the conversations people already have every day?
PHS’ transformation with Speedback at a glance
Pacific Health Service Hutt Valley (PHS), in New Zealand, uses Speedback to bring care into WhatsApp, so patients can stay in touch with their health team between appointments.
Bringing care into everyday conversations: Patients share their readings and photos of meals through WhatsApp.
Helping patients take ownership of their health: One client moved from weekly to monthly clinic visits by monitoring at home.
Keeping nurses within reach: Patients found it reassuring that staff could see what they shared.
Core Challenges
Staying in touch is only the start. The conversation has to help.
PHS nurses and health coaches support people living with long-term conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes and heart failure, often through texts and phone calls between appointments.
Patients wanted to understand what a reading meant and what to do next. And the service had to fit each family, including caregivers, shared phones and messages in their own language.
Intelligent Design
Technology carries the conversation. People still lead it.
Through Speedback, PHS sends reminders and questions on WhatsApp, and patients reply in the same conversation with their blood pressure, glucose and weight readings, and photos of their meals. There is no new app to learn. Patients can follow trends in their own readings, while staff review what comes in and reach out when needed.
Real Impact
Patients feel supported, knowing their care team can see what they share
In feedback sessions, patients described the value of seeing their readings over time.
“I went to the GP every 6 months, but it didn’t make me think about the changes. I was relying on the GP. But now, I take ownership of my own health.”
For one client, monitoring at home changed how often he needed to come in.
“A client who I was seeing once a week … Now, I only see him once a month. He is able to measure his own health by using Speedback and monitoring his blood pressure and blood sugar at home.”