Onto our next finalists in the category of best evidence based tech, we have…
Leeds Teaching Hospitals
Overview: Leeds Teaching Hospitals implemented Patient Pass, a secure platform for secondary to tertiary consultation and referral management.
Why? The platform is designed to improve communication, speed up referrals and support clinical process reliability whilst also providing a full audit trail for information governance.
What happened? A collaborative working group was formed to review the process and Patient Pass was identified as a flexible tool that could be used for the range of services offered by the trust. The trust sought a simple, secure digital platform flexible enough to support all levels of referrals, which could integrate with the trust’s HER, reduce duplication, reduce delays, and improve patient experience. Patient Pass was introduced to the neurosurgical service and following a successful pilot it is now being used across LTHT to support over 26,000 referrals every year across 23 sub-specialities. Benefits include flexible access on web browsers and mobile devices; interactive graphical communication to make it easier for non-specialist clinicians to communicate; a customisable analytics package; the ability to take and upload photographs directly to Patient Pass; and more.
Looking to the future. The trust describes how Patient Pass has transformed the referrals process and enabled them to streamline their patient pathway with automated responses to support the workflow, saving them time which they can now devote to care where it is needed.
Antser
Overview: Antser partnered with the London Borough of Redbridge to test the use of VR technology in interventions used by its Children’s Services with perpetrators and survivors of domestic abuse.
Why? Antser’s VR programme aims to increase empathy and shift attitudes whilst modifying behaviour to enable positive change. By immersing viewers into real-life scenarios, they can experience the impact of trauma, abuse and neglect through a child’s eyes.
What happened? The aim was to understand the VR’s impact and effectiveness for changing attitudes and behaviours, in particular to discourage perpetrators from engaging in abusive behaviours and to educate survivors around longer-term impact of abuse. VR content was used to augment two of Redbridge’s existing intervention programmes, one involving perpetrators with a goal of increasing their empathy, and one which aimed to prevent severe behavioural, emotional and development problems in young people by enhancing knowledge, skills and confidence of parents. The team sought to use VR to raise awareness so that the parents understood how affected children are by observing toxic arguments in the family home. Results indicated that 86 percent of participants strongly agreed that the content helped them understand how their behaviour affects children and 71 percent said that it made them consider alternative ways to behave or respond.
Looking to the future. In the six months following the pilot scheme, none of the participants invoked any further police action or contact related to domestic abuse. In the 14-month follow-up, 90 percent had not been involved in any incidents requiring intervention.
MCAP
Overview: MCAP is supporting the NHS to tackle patient flow blockages, delayed transfers of care and stranded patients by identifying opportunities to reduce length of stay and support Discharge to Assess (D2A) models.
Why? Ensuring that patients are at the right level of care is essential to avoid deconditioning and to reserve beds for those who need them post.
What happened? In November 2022, the Department of Health and Social Care released an impact assessment of the Health and Care Act which highlighted that wider use of D2A models could free up 6000 hospital beds and save the NHS £7bn by 2031. The MCAP solution includes a clinically based set of criteria combined with a data-gathering and reporting system for use in medical-surgical and mental health care settings. It is used to place patients for admission or continued stay at the most appropriate level of care given their individual requirements. MCAP state that their solution identifies twice the number of patients that can move to alternative pathways than previous Medically Fit for Discharge (MFFD) processes. It includes 58 medical-surgical criteria sets that cover 30 separate levels of care and 54 mental health criteria sets that cover 14 levels of care, and it can be fully integrated with current hospital systems. MCAP’s solution has been implemented at over 175 hospitals in the UK and benefits include reduction in length of stay on target wards of 2.35 days over six months and 50 percent reduction in patients delayed due to pre-surgical admission.
Looking to the future. Through tackling patient flow blockages, MCAP assists in improving patient care, staff experience and saving NHS funds.
