Digital Pioneer: Marcela Vizcaychipi, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Foundation Trust

Dr Marcela P Vizcaychipi is a Consultant in Intensive Care and Anaesthesia at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Foundation Trust. She is recognised as a digital pioneer for her work designing and piloting an interactive rehabilitation smartphone app for burns cases post-discharge, designed to empower and support patient self-care and self management.

“There were 19,293 burn cases reported in England in 2015, and minor burn injuries are estimated to affect around 13,600 people,” Marcela explains, “Follow-up visits to change dressings and assess wounds can require multiple hospital visits, which take up a great deal of dedicated nursing and physiotherapy time.”

The App provides a telecare communication route between patient and burns unit nurses, allowing the patient to book a video-call. It also increases dietary guideline adherence, providing flexible daily menus, and delivers tailored video content to increase self-care routine adherence and follow-up appointment attendance. It also has a  mobile-based FAQ section which will hopefully help to reduce the number of calls to the burns unit.

“I developed a prototype app with a digital company, together with patients, nurses and physios, and presented my findings to the British Burns Association to obtain feedback and identify interest from other UK burns units.” Marcela adds,”The app was piloted (30 patients and CWH nurses) and is currently being refined.”