A new digital dashboard has been created by several NHS Wales teams with the aim of making it easier for laboratory staff and clinicians to view information in south, west and mid Wales for patients who are awaiting kidney transplants.
The dashboard has been designed to improve information sharing, and to provide the Welsh Transplantation and Immunogenetics Laboratory (WTAIL) and other relevant NHS Wales users with an updated view of around 250 patients on the kidney and pancreas transplant waiting list.
Before the digital dashboard, waiting list information was available through a monthly report. With the new digital dashboard, data is updated twice in a day and made available instantaneously.
The dashboard also calculates when a blood sample was last taken for routine patient monitoring. According to the team, since the digital dashboard has been implemented, there has been a 65 percent reduction in the number of samples overdue to keep up-to-date with laboratory results, which has also quickened the process of donor compatibility.
Created using Microsoft 365 products such as Power BI, it is said to be a successful collaboration between the Welsh Blood Service’s digital team, WTAIL, and the NHS Wales Microsoft 365 Centre of Excellence, hosted by Digital Health and Care Wales.
Felicity May, clinical specialist histocompatibility and immunogenetics digital lead at WTAIL explained: “The Kidney Transplant Dashboard has been a game changer for us – not only for improving the way we manage our potential transplant recipients, but also highlighting the potential for digital solutions to improve our services and patient care.”
Dr James Chess, consultant nephrologist in Morriston Hospital, added: “The dashboard allows me to securely view which of my patients are active on the transplant waiting list, their transplant details & whether their tissue typing bloods are due.”
Dr Laszlo Szabo, consultant transplant surgeon in University Hospital of Wales, stated: “This dashboard gives us, the transplant team, up-to-date information on our patients waiting for kidney or pancreas transplantation. We can quickly check if we have potential recipients for an organ offer.”
