My Health Guide

My Health Guide provides a way for adults with learning disabilities to record and make sense of the information they are given about their health and wellbeing.

My Health Guide was developed by Maldaba in conjunction with Humber NHS Trust and SBRI Healthcare, and was funded by NHS England.  My Health Guide allows users to record details about themselves, in the form of text, images, video, and audio. This information can be grouped by the user, into what are referred to as boxes, and each box can in turn be shared with family, friends and health care professionals.  In addition there is a special 'Important things about me' section that can be used to record specific medical detail. The app can also be used to store documents, appointments, and contacts, needed for sharing.

The project was inspired by the story of Matthew Prosser who sadly passed away in November 2019.  In 2013 his parents decided to record Matthew's life and his care needs in a single digital document, an adaptation of an iPad app, which became knbnown as Matthew's book.  The book had a profound impact on Matthew’s care team.  Through the success of the book developed with staff connected to The Humber NHS Trust, the idea for My Health Guide was born.

In 2014 an application was submitted to Health Enterprise East to develop an innovative digital platform that would adapt and enhance the concepts from Matthew's book.

Maldaba successfully applied to produce and test a proof-of-concept and this ran until Spring 2015. During that time we created My Health Guide with Humber Trust in a co-production model with both healthcare professionals and learning-disabled adults. Every aspect of the project was tested with both professionals and end users.  The name; branding; fonts and colours; language; functionality; features. The co-production model was invaluable, with feedback from service users and professionals often guiding us in ways we might not have considered.

As part of the development we also used Marvel to build detailed prototypes.  These could be built from wireframes, but more often from hi-fidelity photoshop mock-ups.  We were often able to get feedback within a matter of hours.  As a timesaver this was invaluable.

The app was tested in both in-patient and day service settings, with users who had a range of mild to moderate learning disabilities. The pilot test results in SBRI phase 1 were overwhelming. Nobody wanted to stop using the app, and the impact it had on one user with anxiety and depression was so profound that when she went for her regular consultation with her Psychiatrist after 6 weeks using My Health Guide, he observed such a dramatic improvement in her self-management of her condition that he discharged her from his care.  Following on from the intial test this led to an officially sancyion six month NHS trial, with over one hundred learning disabled adults.  The results were oustanding.

A key feedback tool for health care professionals

One of the key aspects of My Health Guide was the ability for care staff, but also family and friends, to have access to content specifically shared by the app user.  Each box within the app can be shared with contacts added to the app.  This isn't a general blanket setting more typical with common social media platforms, but instead gices the app user total contol over what they share and with whom.  Medical related information can be shared with medical staff and family related information with family.  Some of this will have some crossover and that can be tailored accordingly.

All of this information can be accesed by a web interface.  As content is added to the app it is automatically backed up to the cloud as part of a syncing process, and when that happens shared information then becomes available.  There is also the option to create and send content to shared boxes, send alerts to the app, perhaps a reminder of an activity, and also to build dedicated boxes that can be shared with app users.  This might be done by a GP who wants to have strict control over a medication list that is used by care staff or family.

About the project

In addition to building the app and the supporting interface we also built a dedicated marketing and support, using WordPress and the Timber plugin and theme, in conjunction with the Advanced Custom Fields plugin. The primary focus of the site is to provide detail regarding the project, particularly insight for other care professionals. In addition the site offers a detiailed set of YouTube how-to videos.