Seven trusts in London have adopted the Command Centre model based on the Analytical Command Centre at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust.
The trusts are using the platform to alert staff to how many ambulances are predicted, including details of patient type and visibility of incoming COVID-19 risks. Staff across the London trusts can now access bed status across each ward on every site, and patients with COVID-19 are flagged.
UHMBT created a Command Centre using software from Qlik which provides an overall view of operations and is available internally and remotely. It provides a single view of data to reduce delays in patient services and support patient flow.
Rob O’Neill, Head of Information, UHMBT, said “Data really is the golden thread that runs right through the hospitals, from patients up to board level and that enables people to make data-driven decisions in all care settings, both operationally and clinically.”
“This safe and effective model is testament to the hard work of my team and our partners QlickiT. We’re delighted that other trusts in the country have adopted the command centre model to help them with the flow of patients in and out of their organisations during COVID-19 and beyond.”
The Analytic Command Centre displays live information about patients through their hospital stay, from incoming patients travelling via ambulance to patients waiting for discharge home. It presents when there might be delays, highlights Emergency Department performance and shows the number of walk-ins.
The trust said its staff also benefit because access to data has reduced their meeting times; a patient flow gathering that used to take 45 minutes for 20 senior leaders and clinicians now takes less than ten minutes.
The Trust now holds patient flow meetings every two hours in the command centre which helps teams to better analyse the emergency care setting and patient flow in and out of the hospital.
Mike Cawthorn, Director and Business Solution Lead at Catalyst BI, said “We are proud to be supporting our NHS Trusts with the rapid deployment of the command centre in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Rob and his team have developed a world-class product at UHMBT and QlickiT worked with the team to add a configuration capability, which allows the command centre to be deployed within days to any NHS organisation in the UK and further afield. This combination allows the London trusts to deploy the modules developed by UHMBT within hours.”
The project at UHMBT was recognised earlier in the year at the HTN Awards.
