Frimley Park Hospital Adult Therapy Services has shared its experience of digital transformation with the Carter Review Team after Lord Carter’s report into operational productivity in English NHS acute hospitals highlighted the need for more efficient deployment of allied health professionals (AHPs) as a key area where productivity gains can be made.
Having deployed the Tiara9 electronic patient record (EPR) and appointment booking solution across all major allied health disciplines, Frimley Park’s Adult Therapy Services are able to gain a clear picture of the source of therapy referrals and deploy clinicians accordingly.
Speaking about their experience, Val Sharples, Head of Occupational Therapy and Surgical Appliances at Frimley Park Hospital, said: “The Carter Review Team were impressed with how much we have been able to achieve on the back of our Tiara9 implementation. The solution gives us real-time data on therapy ‘hotspots’ in the hospital, and we are able to respond as demands on the service change, making adjustments to how we allocate clinicians across wards, and reducing response times for patients accordingly.”
Reports can be generated on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, making Tiara9 a powerful tool for trends analysis. Val continues: “We were able to look at patterns across the week, identifying that referrals on a Monday are 200% higher than other week days. As a result, we ensure that part-time contracts are geared towards covering the start of the week when pressure on the service is greater.
“It also gives us the evidence to make a business case for additional resources when appropriate. For example, Tiara9 reports showed clearly the impact on caseload when Frimley Park became a regional vascular unit, both in terms of volume of patients and the additional time needed to account for travel in a larger catchment area.
“We have also identified ways to improve efficiency further, using the solution to help speed up the discharge process by ordering equipment loans for amputees, or services such as home adaptations.”
The report into NHS efficiency, led by Lord Carter of Coles, was published earlier this year, identifying £5 billion of potential savings which could be redeployed into NHS budgets, and making a number of recommendations to eliminate ‘unwarranted variations’ in performance across acute hospitals. Amongst these was improved use of modern digital technologies to enable real-time monitoring and reporting as the basis of better informed decision-making.
Simon Taylor, Managing Director at Ethitec, the IT provider behind Tiara9, added: “The Frimley Park deployment was a textbook implementation of electronic patient records, planned in a careful and considered way to ensure clinician buy-in and reap the benefits of collecting information as a by-product of clinical activity rather than an additional pressure on workloads. As a result, Frimley Park now have powerful real-time information, providing the basis for improved planning, efficiency and outcomes.”
