Automating Outpatients:Transforming the clinic experience for patients and clinicians

Stuart Moore, Director of Strategy & PlanningJulie Thompson, Assistant Divisional General Manager

Health Insights Manchester, 2 July 2014

Overview

- The Trust

- How it used to be

- Our self check-in approach

- Benefits and learning points

The Trust

- Specialist neuroscience trust

- 3.4m population in Merseyside, Cheshire, wider NW, north Wales, IoM

- £100m turnover- 100,000 outpatients per

annum

Before

- Queues- Delays- Crowds- Stressed staff- Frustrated clinicians

• Why did I have to ask why the clinic was running late?

• The whole waiting area was a shambles.• Patients should be kept informed of any

delays and the timescales the delay may cause.

Pathway

Self check-in options

- Cost- PAS interface- Inflexibility

Self check-in

New pathway

Patient display

Check details

Clinician display

Clinic screen

Nurse display

Technical solution

Benefits

- Queues- Delays- Crowds- Stressed staff- Frustrated clinicians

EliminatedReducedEliminatedEliminatedEliminated

For patients…

- No queueing

- Seating

- Informed about delay

- Confidence to get a cup of tea

- Staff available to assist

- Calmer

- Personal service

For clinic staff…

- No longer humping casenotes all day

- More rounded job

- HCAs:

• Available to assist clinicians, chaperone etc

• More involved in flow of clinic

- Reception staff:

• Able to support patients

• Manage advice line for specialist nurses

For clinicians…

- Informed and able to take control

- Can see how many are waiting and who

- Clinics running to time

For the clinic manager…

- More efficient use of staff

- Better clinic flow

- Management information

• Clinic room utilisation

• Clinic overruns

• Late starts

- Staff morale

For the IT strategy…

- Visibility to all clinical staff

• Tangible product, being used

• Readiness/hunger for further developments

- Use of iPads for patient symptom questionnaires, trials recruitment etc

- Can write to EPR from iPad

Learning points

- Demographics completeness reduced

- Out of order patients

- PAS feed

- Further modifications

Summary

- Well used

- Transformed outpatients

- Brought all clinicians into IT strategy

- Flexible platform for future

- Total cost of £15,000, funded by regional innovation fund grant