Kasebook

A rapid peer-to-peer advice website to produce better support and decisions for GPs.

The College of Medicine supports a range of initiatives which help to improve decision making in the NHS.  We are delighted to be promoting KaseBook as a means for our GP members to ask for advice from their peers - and give it - on the fly.

How Kasebook works

KaseBook is a secure website helping clinicians to help each other develop their clinical practice.

When faced with tricky clinical and managerial dilemmas most doctors like having the chance to check out the views of reliable colleagues.

This is not about being told what to do by remote experts; it’s about getting well-grounded answers from colleagues grappling with the same issues as you. And, where you can, about helping them in return.

You can share the most useful sources and there are quick links to the best of the on-line GP websites. Where the evidence doesn’t help, you can develop a consensus.

KaseBook is based on recent studies that show how professionals often rely as much on collective experience as on top-down guidance to build up their practical know-how.

The more members that join, the better KaseBook will become. Members must themselves be doctors, and either be invited by existing members, or vetted by the College of Medicine.  Even when you talk to a distant KaseBook colleague, you will know they were asked to join by someone you can trust. No one else has access.

Case study: a success for Kasebook

A GP had a new patient with an unfamiliar set of symptoms. The patient complained of nausea which appeared after 10 minutes fast walking but was relieved by rest or walking more slowly. This had been consistent. He had no chest pain and was otherwise well. His blood pressure was well controlled and he was not overweight. He had no other GI symptoms.

He had recently vomited because of the nausea and this prompted him to come to see the his GP - however the symptoms had been on going for many years - his previous GP advised him to walk more slowly.

Unsure what to do, the GP posted the case to Kasebook.  The answers rolled in over the next few days. Several suggested that angina (ischaemic heart disease) can present this way, albeit unusually. The GP pursued this line.

Three weeks he posted back to Kasebook: 'Thank you to all who responded to this for your helpful comments. My partner organised an exercise test for him which was positive at 4 minutes and he awaits angiography. I think this is an important lesson about the potential for atypical presentation of common conditions. I would also chalk it up as a success for Kasebook!'