Secondary Care

Royal Free London to adopt digital pathway tool

The Royal Free London NHS FT is to introduce a digital tool from Open Medical to support the management of its plastic surgery department.

The Pathpoint platform will be introduced for the trust’s trauma and orthopaedic team in the coming months, following integration with the trust’s electronic patient record system.

Once implemented, the tool will support care co-ordination, patient triage and tracking, and managing care pathways across locations. In addition, the trust will process referrals across its 19 cites through the one portal, with integration with the national e-referral service.

Mr Allan Ponniah, plastic surgeon, and lead for IT in plastics at the Royal Free London said: “Pathoint’s platform has been designed specifically for the plastics service and it has provided us with the functionality we need, including allowing us to upload visuals and to draw on notes, so we can coordinate patient care effectively.

“The platform works alongside existing digital systems, including the trust’s electronic patient record, and it can help us improve patient care by allowing us to capture and analyse patient data which can be used in future service planning.”

For our latest HTN Now event, we held a live session with Michael Shenouda, medical director and orthopaedic surgeon, focusing on adding value to your electronic patient record. Michael focused on the importance of an interconnected digital eco-system, how to achieve it and how to maximise value out of an electronic patient record system and digital solutions. You can read or watch the session back here.

In April 2022, we welcomed the Royal Free London for a session at HTN Now, where the team shared key learnings and experiences gained from the development of digital programmes, apps and systems at the trust. Watch the session here.