ACU-Track: a new clinical tool

ACU-Track: a new clinical tool for acupuncturists

Helping practitioners demonstrate the results of their practice

ACU-Track is a new clinical outcomes tracking system, specifically designed for practitioners of acupuncture and traditional East Asian medicine (TEAM). Founded by BAcC members Nick Lowe and Spod Dutton, the ACU-Track project was awarded a BAcC research grant and has enjoyed significant support from former BAcC Research Manager Mark Bovey.

Designed to fit in seamlessly with day-to-day practice, our system allows practitioners to easily track and record their clinical results online, using patient outcome questionnaires. We have partnered with software specialists Amplitude Clinical, the leading provider of patient outcomes software for the NHS, to deliver this innovative new system for our profession.

How does it work?

ACU-Track can send all patient outcome questionnaires automatically to patients via email at predefined time points so they can complete them at home at their own convenience. All of our questionnaires are quick and easy for patients to complete.

ACU-Track uses a variety of outcome questionnaires which are capable of tracking the wide range of health complaints and comorbidities that acupuncturists and TEAM practitioners commonly see in their clinics; including pain, mental health complaints and general wellbeing. These validated questionnaires ensure that practitioners are collecting accurate and meaningful data on patient improvement.

Pilot phase and potential

ACU-Track was piloted over a ninemonth period with a small number of clinics in the UK, with the majority of patients reporting a clinically meaningful improvement in their main health complaint as well as high levels of satisfaction with care. ACU-Track shows great potential for replicating this success locally and nationally, by collecting large-scale clinical data and creating a unique research registry for acupuncture and TEAM.

The Northern College of Acupuncture (NCA) will be using ACU-Track in their college student clinic in the new academic year and we are very excited to see the results coming in from their new multibed community clinic.

Communicating the effectiveness of our profession

Data collected via ACU-Track has the potential to provide GP practices, NHS trusts, healthcare providers and insurers with real data on how much better patients can expect to get when they receive acupuncture and TEAM treatments and care, for which conditions, and for what cost. This data can also help inform patient choices about their healthcare, and be communicated to disease-specific charities or organisations who often compile their own recommendations on which treatments patients can seek.

If traditional acupuncturists in the UK are to become fully recognised healthcare professionals in the future, we need to communicate like healthcare professionals by providing real data to demonstrate the significant clinical value we can bring to healthcare in this country. This is especially important in the wake of the new NICE guidelines including a recommendation of acupuncture for chronic pain. We need to ensure that traditional acupuncturists are involved in providing this care.

Informing clinical practice

As well as collecting data to inform healthcare stakeholders, we are equally passionate about collecting data that can be directly useful for us as practitioners. ACUTrack can collect a lot of other important information about the interventions patients have received.

Practitioners can record their clinical records and patient notes using the system, which contains comprehensive acu-point and herb lists as well as visual body charts. Practitioners can record which styles and techniques were used to treat their patients as well as any lifestyle advice given.

Our system also includes professionspecific intake forms which can be sent to new patients automatically via email to help save time in clinic. These forms are designed to collect essential information on a patient’s medical history, medication use and BMI, as well as acupuncture and TCM specific information such as questions on temperature, diet and lifestyle.

We would like to study what differences all these factors may make

We want to know how much better patients get with individualised treatments in real-world clinical settings