Client Story
Tackling patient flow at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
When it comes to patient care, efficiency and coordination are paramount.
Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (GHFT) has taken a
significant step forward in revolutionising patient flow across its integrated
care system (ICS) by implementing a system-wide patient flow dashboard.
This enables faster coordination of patient discharges across the care
providers within the One Gloucestershire integrated care system.
Streamline workflows
Faster coordination of discharge
Better visibility of patients waiting discharge for ICS partners
Access to data in real time
Improved visibility and transparency
The dashboard, which is underpinned by data stored within the trust’s Altera
Digital Health Sunrise™ EPR, has led to improved visibility and transparency
of patients by health and social care staff across their whole care pathway by
facilitating faster time to discharge and better communication between health and social care providers across the region.
The ambitious project required coordination of patient discharge data from
GHFT, Gloucestershire Health and Care Foundation Trust, and Gloucestershire
County Council. This necessitated streamlining of workflows and processes across the various organisations, to ensure the dashboard could be fully
implemented into working practice.
Paul Downie, Chief Clinical Information Officer and Chief Clinical Safety Officer at GHFT explained, “Many of the care providers across the ICS were operating in silos using a range of data logging processes and storage, from SQL servers to spreadsheets and notepads. A lot of time was wasted on the phone confirming the status of patients as no joined-up approach was in place for transferring people between organisations. Lack of data visibility for all relevant clinical and operational stakeholders led to delays in patient discharges and contributed to additional clinical interventions triggered as a result of acquiring healthcare associated infections or suffering falls as a result of lengthy inpatient stays, for example.”
A single source of truth
The dashboard now enables all ICS partners to see the current number of
patients awaiting discharge from GHFT organisation, and the next stage of
their pathway, with real time feeds from social care and community services
being configured currently into the GHFT server.
Better data practices across the ICS
The dashboard, which is hosted by GHFT, has fostered better data practices
across the ICS. Eve Olivant, Senior System Flow Lead at One Gloucestershire
ICS said, “Better data leads to better visibility. With the dashboard, at a glance, we can see all patients on a discharge pathway. This means we can see where potential bottlenecks are occurring and ensure we have the right resources in place to help people transition safely and efficiently from hospital to being cared for at home, or in a community setting.”
With the pressure on all care settings right now, solutions that improve patient flow are incredibly important right now. We are delighted to see the impact the ICS dashboard is having across the One Gloucestershire ICS, most importantly in terms of patient outcomes, but also in efficiencies across the care system.
The development of the patient flow dashboard is the latest digital
transformation project led by GHFT in collaboration with NHS Gloucestershire and is driven by the organisation’s desire to reach HIMSS EMRAM Stage 6 by 2024. The trust previously deployed Sunrise EPR in late 2019 as a “clinical wrap” around its existing third-party PAS (patient administration system) within Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, Cheltenham General Hospital and Stroud Maternity Hospital.
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