Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust has collaborated with Graphnet Health to pilot a population health dashboard that combines its surgical waiting lists with the Buckinghamshire Shared Care Record.
Formed and launched earlier this year to enable targeted preoperative support, the dashboard is said to support “identification of high-risk surgical patients”, to provide targeted support pre-surgery, and also support the “identification of patients suitable for operation in elective surgical hubs”.
Commenting on the project, Dr Caroline Pritchard, consultant anesthetist and perioperative service clinical lead for Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, said: “This exciting and powerful digital innovation has enabled us to remap our peri-operative pathway, benefiting our patients and boosting recovery of our elective operating lists.
“The time savings have been extremely valuable. For example, previously, all pre-operative patients would have filled a 45-minute clinic appointment. Now, manual triaging by a senior nurse has been completely removed, and 20 out of every 100 patients will avoid a pre-operative assessment completely.”
Graphnet added that “the incorporation of primary care data allows clinicians to identify patients on waiting lists who have chronic conditions such as hypertension, diabetes or obesity, and those with co-morbidities”. In addition, “candidate lists for cancellations are helping fill cancelled slots, where the dashboard automatically stratifies patients, that can be booked in to available surgical appointments”.
The next step for Buckinghamshire Healthcare is to use the dashboard to support the management of other waiting lists, such as for outpatient services, diagnostic procedures and beyond.
In August, for our latest thought leadership webinar, we welcomed a panel of experts for a discussion on taking a data-driven approach to operational improvements, day-to-day management, and proactive care. To bring a variety of expert insights and viewpoints to the discussion, we were joined by Stephen Slough, chief digital information officer at Dorset ICS; Paul Charnley, digital lead at Healthy Wirral Partners; and Esther Ocrah, director at GE HealthCare Command Centre Europe.
Last month, we spoke with Paul Henderson and Astrid Grant from Channel 3 Consulting, who shared their insights on Shared Care Records. The discussion focused on benefits, challenges, the opportunities and the role of Shared Care Records in transforming services, as well as covering where Shared Care Records are going, the key areas for improvement, funding and distribution.
