Improving Patient Care With Lean Health Informatics Tools

Robin Smith CISSP CIPP-E PCRMUniversity Hospitals of Leicester

The Context

Volume of Data

A Changing NHS

• Departure of staff and failure to recruit• Inefficient processes for training• Poor knowledge quality of info systems• Medical errors across clinical services• Litigation and regulatory activity• Poor knowledge harvesting by current IT

systems

The Trust lean health informatics (LHI) strategy reviewed a series of connected processes to reduce waste and improve patient care.

These were;• The delivery of patient care; • Enhanced information management;• Accelerated information technology.

Revising Strategies

Is Information An Asset?

Enhancing Flow

What is LHI?

Connecting people to the knowledge they need to do their jobs, whether that knowledge is tacit (in people’s heads) or explicit (documented).

Documented Handling

• Document Assembly• Component Content Management• Records Management

Enhanced information management

• E-records tech introduced to enhance information management for new clinicians

• Enhanced classification and retrieval of expertise to improve patient care

Sharing and Collaboration

• Lessons Learned• Communities of Practice• Social Media• Collaboration• Expertise Location

Narrative Management

• Story-telling approaches have been drawn into LHI to facilitate the communication of knowledge.

• Scenarios can be particularly helpful when describing processes.

• Simply stating the facts of a situation will impart information, but more effective communication places facts within a structure that is appropriate for audience.

After Action ReviewsAn inexpensive, simple, systematic process that has the power to change an entire work culture:

1.What did we set out to do?2.What actually happened?3.Why was there a difference?4.What are we going to do next time?

Innovation

• Idea Management• Business Intelligence/ Key Analytics

Questions

Accelerated information technology

• Technology accelerators to improve flow and knowledge sharing amongst clinicians

• BYOD for clinical hand-overs and updates

The Only Principle

““Change is the law of life. And Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the present are certain to miss the future.”future.”

John F. Kennedy