Digital blueprints have been made available to hospitals as part of the Global Digital Exemplar programme.
Salford Royal has released the blueprint here > to provide toolkits to allow any NHS hospital to implement improvements quicker and transform care for both patients and staff.
The Trust’s digital assessment tool to detect delirium and dementia, developed by staff at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, is being rolled out as one of the first national NHS blueprints.
Salford Royal’s new electronic assessment tool for delirium is helping patients and their families by accurately diagnosing more patients with delirium. It is the first of its kind in NHS England and, as such, will now be shared as a blueprint across the rest of the NHS.
Dr Emma Vardy, Consultant Geriatrician and Clinical Dementia Lead, said: “Our ambition has been to help other NHS organisations to identify delirium early. Once identified, we can treat patients quicker and improve outcomes. Here at Salford Royal, we have developed a gold standard assessment tool to increase screening of over 65s on admission to hospital, and those who become newly confused as an inpatient. It also triggers the right patient treatment and management packages and guides referral on to other services.”
“We have worked hard to package this piece of work and develop a ‘blueprint’ which will guide other organisations through the process and methodology, helping them do the same thing and get results for their patients.”
Figures from Salford Royal’s first year of using the tool show a reduction in average length of hospital stay for patients with delirium. It has increased screening for over 65-year-olds, with the number of identified cases per year having risen by 34% and the length of stay for these patients has reduced by 11%, saving an estimated £1.7m in the first year. Readmissions for delirium patients has also reduced from 15% to 13% saving an estimated £101,000 for the same period.
Will Smart, chief information officer for Health and Care, said: “The NHS Long Term Plan set out our ambitions for a world class digital NHS using the best available technology. Our blueprinting work will help NHS trusts drive their use of digital far more quickly and cost effectively than has been possible in the past, adopting successful technology and projects that have already made an impact elsewhere.”
