Evaluating patient care in multiple sclerosis: Impact of combined digital tools and holistic management strategies

Innovations are essential to meet the needs of people with MS (PwMS), particularly in addressing delays in diagnosis and treatment, and in supporting patient self-management.

To evaluate the real-world use and outcomes of digital technologies and holistic management strategies for MS at a UK Centre.

Digital tools for PwMS included Patients Know Best (a personal health record) and CONNECTPlus^® (an educational app). Tools for healthcare professionals included Infoflex (a clinical database with MSProDiscuss for assessing disease progression). A Healthy Lifestyle Clinic was introduced to promote brain health. The impact of these interventions on time-to-diagnosis, time-to-disease-modifying therapy (DMT) initiation, non-elective admissions, and hospital costs was evaluated retrospectively from 2018 to 2023, comparing pre-intervention (2018-2019) with post-intervention (2020-2023) periods, while accounting separately for COVID-19 years (2020-2021).

Trends indicated a higher likelihood of disease progression in patients with delayed MS diagnosis (p < 0.001), and a reduction in time from diagnosis to DMT initiation, from an average of 23.5 to 5.8 months (p = 0.024), post-MS Infoflex disease management database implementation. Non-elective admissions and healthcare costs also decreased compared to neighbouring hospitals.

Digital and holistic interventions were associated with positive trends in MS care delivery. Further research is needed to validate these findings.