Professor Martyn R. Partridge

Martyn R. Partridge is Professor of Respiratory Medicine, Imperial College London, and Senior Vice Dean, the Imperial College Nanyang Medical School, Singapore.His research interests are in evaluating the delivery of healthcare to those with respiratory illnesses. This includes evaluation of service enhancements such as the organisation of specialist consultation services, the  use of lay educators, integration of respiratory healthcare, telephone consultations,  Electronic asthma and COPD action plans, and methods of enhancing communication between both patients and doctors, and specialists and General Practitioners. He has a particular interest in the subject of health literacy and in simplifying information materials and questionnaires (such as the Epworth Sleepiness score) to enhance  comprehension.

An essential part of good healthcare is a well trained workforce and Professor Partridge chairs the clinical years sub-committee of the Undergraduate Education Committee at Imperial College where he is also deputy Director of Education. His educational interests include the use, and most especially the evaluation of E learning by both undergraduate and postgraduate trainees.

Professor Partridge is past President of the British Thoracic Society (BTS), previous Chief Medical Adviser to Asthma UK, a previous member of the GINA (Global Initiative for Asthma) Executive and Chairman of their Dissemination Committee and he currently chairs the UK Department of Health (DH) Asthma Steering Group, is a member  of  the DH Respiratory Programme Board. and Chairman of  the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) Asthma Deaths Audit Steering Group.  He has led on a number of WHO initiatives and served for several years as a member of the Medical Aerosols sub-committee of the United Nations Environment Programme overseeing the phase out of CFCs.

In October 2010 the Singapore Government asked Imperial College to work with Nanyang Technological University (NTU) to set up a third Medical School in Singapore awarding a joint Imperial/NTU degree, and Professor Partridge was appointed to the post of Senior Vice Dean of the new Medical School to lead on its development.

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Software Downloads

Electronic Asthma Action Plan Software (E-AAP)

The British Lung Foundation contributed towards the development costs of this work

Self management education and the issuing of a written action plan has been shown to improve outcomes for asthma. We have developed an electronic pictorial asthma action plan (E-PAAP)¹ which incorporates pictorial asthma action plans into a software package. This software package should help overcome problems of access to paper templates, by calculating peak flow action thresholds and by prompting correct completion.

The development of the software has been accepted for publication² and the software is available for healthcare professionals and other colleagues to trial by clicking on the link at right. If you have any comments or queries about the software please contact Professor Partridge (m.partridge@imperial.ac.uk).

1. Roberts NJ, Mohamed Z, Wong PS, Johnson M, Loh LC, Partridge MR. The development and comprehensibility of a pictorial asthma action plan. Patient Educ Couns 2009; 74(1):12-18.
2. Roberts N, Evans G, Blenkhorn P, Partridge M. Development of an electronic pictorial asthma action plan and its use in primary care. Patient Educ Couns 2010; 80(1):141-146.

 

Electronic COPD Action Plan Software (ECOPDAP)

A similar electronic action plan has been designed for COPD and is also available for healthcare professionals and other collegues to trial by downloading from the link at right. If you have any comments or queries about the software please contact Professor Partridge (m.partridge@imperial.ac.uk).

 

Roberts NJ & Partridge MR. Evaluation of a paper and electronic pictorial COPD action plan. Chronic Respiratory Disease, 2011, 8: 31-40

 

 

A Glossary of terms in Respiratory Medicine for use by patients

It is increasingly good practice to permit patients access to their medical records and to copy to patients correspondence being sent from a specialist to the patients primary care physician. Unfortunately the use of medical terminology reduces the comprehensibility of these ventures. Colleagues may therefore wish to download a copy of terms used in respiratory medicine which has been evaluated in the publication listed below.

 

Brown C, Roberts NR & Partridge MR. Does use of a glossary aid patient understanding of the letters being sent to their general practitioner? Clinical Medicine, 2007, 7: 457-460.

 

Pictorial Epworth Sleepiness Scale

The Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) was designed to be self-completed by the patient. However, it may not be understood by all and unrecognised problems with literacy can impair the process. We have translated the ESS into a pictorial version for use in those with normal or diminished literacy skills.  http://pictorialepworthimperial.blogspot.com/

An evaluation of the patients’ ability to self complete the ESS was undertaken in sleep and non-sleep respiratory clinics. Errors or problems encountered were recorded on a standard questionnaire. With the aid of a medical artist, pictorial representations of the eight ESS questions were developed and the new pictorial ESS was offered to patients alongside the traditional ESS. The two scales were compared for agreement with a kappa statistic and patients were asked to record a preference for either the written or the pictorial scale.

The evaluation of the traditional ESS showed that 33.8% (27/80) of ESS naive patients made errors and 22.5% (18/80) needed help completing the questionnaire. The translated pictorial ESS showed good agreement with the traditional ESS on most questions (median kappa score 0.63, IQR 0.04). Fifty five percent reported a preference for the pictorial scale compared to the standard written ESS. More people (75.6%) reported the pictorial ESS to be very easy in contrast to (64.6%) the worded ESS questionnaire.

Errors are common when patients self-complete the traditional written ESS. Pictures with words have been shown to enhance the understanding and translation of medical information and a pictorial translation of the ESS produces comparable scores to the traditional ESS and may be a suitable alternative for those with normal or diminished literacy.

R Ghiassi,  K Murphy, A Cummin, M R Partridge. Developing a pictorial Epworth Sleepiness Scale, Thorax published online ahead of print 2010

Related article:

R Ghiassi  and M R Partridge. Health Literacy and Sleep Apnoea, Thorax published online ahead of print 2010