Digital dashboard system improving post-natal care at Chelsea and Westminster

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has utilised Lumeon’s Care Pathway Management platform to gain efficiencies in their busy postnatal maternity service and improve the experience for patients, their families and staff.

Dr Sunita Sharma, Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist explains, “Through studying women and staff surveys we identified that the stay and the care delivered on the postnatal ward can be enhanced with better systems in place. The ward has a hectic pace, which needed good communications and operational systems for all the people involved. This also needed to happen without increasing the workload on the team.”

Lumeon’s Care Pathway Management solution digitises the hospital postnatal operational pathway. All activities and tasks are orchestrated and automated in real time, with the ability to get a good overview of the care being delivered. Digital dashboards allow multi-disciplinary team members to quickly see the next steps required in the care of mums and their babies. Staff are able to communicate more effectively with new mums and the dashboard also provides a more holistic overview of steps remaining, which mums and their partners can also see because of the traffic light system on the ward TV screen.

Lumeon partnered with CW+, the charity of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust who funded this project, to co-create, test and embed the digital end-to-end care pathway. The project is one of over 70 innovation projects within the CW Innovation programme, a joint initiative run by the charity and the Trust to implement new high-impact innovation initiatives that improve patient care and experience.

Dr Sharma continues, “We decided to digitise – and automate where possible – some of the steps in the postnatal process in order to improve the experience for women and staff on the ward.”

“The advantage that the tool has offered is improved communication between team members. There are times when there are up to 13 professionals coming onto the ward and a lot of time was previously spent trying to get information or give information to another team member.”

“The Lumeon system is very intuitive, it is very easy to use and we are also helped by the fact that we have a digital-savvy workforce, so in terms of implementing a new system it’s been great.”

The platform has automated and streamlined activities in the department, Elizabeth Stewart, Senior Midwife in Charge of Examination of Newborn (EON) service says, “I can get the history of the baby and mother instantly, do the baby check, upload to the system and make referrals with a click of the button, without having to leave the room.”

Solutions designed by staff

Dr Sharma said, “This project has been helped by the fact that staff have been involved right from the start when we interviewed them and understood their pain points – a lot of the solutions have been proposed by the staff so it’s been a great implementation exercise.”

“It’s been an exciting opportunity for us to energise post-natal care and innovate to make experiences better for families and staff, and for them to see the difference. We are working to reduce delays once they are discharged by the clinical team, so the mums can take their babies home as soon as possible.”

To watch a video on the project or download the case study, please click here