Our Future Health
1 platform
>1 million
350,000+
<2 Years
Kainos proved to be the ideal digital partner for Our Future Health. With a successful track record in secure, data-centric projects, including the UK NHS App, their digital expertise has been invaluable. This, together with their commitment and understanding of our unique requirements, has significantly contributed to our project's success
About Our Future Health
Our Future Health is the UK’s largest ever health research programme. It is designed to help people live healthier lives for longer through the discovery and testing of more effective approaches to prevention, earlier detection and treatment of diseases.
Our Future Health is inviting millions of people, from all backgrounds and from right across the UK, to take part. Volunteers are providing information about their health and lifestyles to create an incredibly detailed picture that represents the whole of the UK. By developing a more detailed understanding of what makes certain people more likely to develop a disease – plus what to look out for before any symptoms appear – Our Future Health has the potential to help to develop far more effective approaches to both prevention and treatment.
Challenge
Our Future Health wanted to build a digital platform for the research programme, along with supporting applications.
Portal to handle 5 million volunteers
Our Future Health is unique because of its sheer scale. The aim of the programme is to build a cohort of 5 million people that truly reflects the UK population. Volunteers are asked to provide information about their health and lifestyles and a small sample of their blood. Collecting and linking multiple sources of health and health-relevant information, across a cohort of this scale, will create a world-leading resource for academic and commercial researchers.
Digital registration and onboarding service
For Our Future Health to onboard that many volunteers, they needed a simple and accessible digital registration service.
The service required a bespoke, dynamic questionnaire engine to capture health and lifestyle information – while ensuring robust security for such sensitive personal information. It also needed to integrate seamlessly with a third-party booking system, so participants could make clinic appointments to provide blood samples.
Clinician-focused digital applications
In addition, Our Future Health needed digital applications to help healthcare professionals collect measurements and biological samples from participants. The data had to be stored and processed in a secure, de-identified way for researchers to analyse.
NHS Integration
NHSBT (NHS Blood and Transplant) will also be participating in the study by allowing blood donors to join as part of their regular blood donation appointment. This new recruitment route aims to make it more convenient than ever for people to take part in health research. To support this initiative, Kainos has implemented a scalable solution that allows Our Future Health and NHSBT to securely and effectively share relevant data, helping aid the recruitment of participants.
The Solution
Kainos first partnered with Our Future Health in 2020, providing technical leadership and building a pilot platform. Working jointly alongside teams from Our Future Health, Kainos developed the participant portal, applications for clinical staff and supporting services using a combination of Microsoft Azure Cloud services and Dynamics CRM.
After volunteers register and provide consent, they access the participant portal, which has a dynamic questionnaire engine that securely captures demographic details and chooses from among 225 lifestyle and health questions. The registration service and portal integrate with the third-party solution managing clinic appointments, so volunteers have a seamless experience of booking a time to give their blood sample.
All volunteer interactions – from registration through to sample collection and questionnaire completion – are recorded in a database and integrated with the CRM. Automation ensures seamless operations, and Our Future Health staff can communicate with volunteers through geo-targeted marketing. Importantly, staff also get critical engagement insights so they can refine their communication approach and boost recruitment and satisfaction.
Kainos and Our Future Health teams have designed and developed the application for clinic staff to manage appointments, integrate with NHS England and co-ordinate with labs carrying out genomic sequencing. The application provides real-time reporting and dashboards, so it’s easy to manage both participants and stakeholders.
Results
Regulatory approval and rapid momentum
We launched a successful pilot in 2020 and in 2021 we launched the full national service.
There has been widespread media coverage of the project, and as of November 2023, more than 1 million volunteers have consented to take part. Thousands of people attend clinics every day, and more than 450,000 blood samples have been collected.
Researchers now have a growing digital library of de-identified health data for analysis.
Expanding engagement and collaboration
Thanks to the CRM integration, automation, dashboards and reporting, Our Future Health has successfully engaged with its volunteers.
Our approach ensured integration with labs, sample logistics centres, the UK Biocentre and NHS England. This has streamlined collaboration with a range of stakeholders, including enabling a partnership with the NHS Blood and Transplant service to recruit blood donors as volunteers.
Based on the success to date, Our Future Health has contracted Kainos to be their digital delivery partner for another year.
Why Kainos
For over a decade, Kainos has created digital solutions for the NHS, private providers, public health bodies and cutting-edge life sciences companies. From the NHS Apps in England and Wales to state-of-the-art electronic medical records platforms, we’re at the forefront of helping healthcare benefit from digital transformation.