Following a successful pilot programme to automate their paper-based pre-operative assessment process within the orthopaedic outpatient clinic, East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (ELHT) has signed a five year contract with Caradigm to deploy its solutions trust-wide. The pilot used the Caradigm Intelligence Platform and self-service kiosks to collect pre-op assessment data from clinicians and patients. It is envisaged that the trial will result in a reduction in the number of cancelled operations due to inconsistencies in data which could result in a saving of approximately £75,000 per year.
Taking advantage of the 'Safer Hospitals, Safer Wards' Technology fund, ELHT has decided to roll out the solution across all of its surgical outpatient clinics, helping the trust to achieve health secretary Jeremy Hunt's paperless NHS ambition by 2018.
The Caradigm Intelligence Platform will help support ELHT to improve clinical and operational performance by addressing the inefficiencies resulting from multiple legacy systems, which did not integrate effectively. One of the key challenges faced by the trust was the ability to get an overall view of pre-operative assessment schedules. ELHT needed a solution that enabled them to take their paper-based workflows and automate them to provide a full view of all data across the trust.
Emma Birchall, the trust's Associate Director of IM&T explained: "We wanted a 'best of breed' application that can aggregate clinical data from systems across the trust and present it in one view. We were already using Caradigm’s Single Sign On and Context Management solutions, so in October 2012 we approached them to explore how they could help us further.
"We needed to ensure the technology would address our key challenges and that it complemented our existing systems before committing to a trust-wide deployment. The pilot has been very well received by clinicians and other service users. As well as helping us to move a step closer to improving efficiencies and achieving our e-health strategy, we are also expecting improvements in quality and financial savings," said Birchall.
Richard Craven, VP and Managing Director, Europe, Caradigm commented: "Caradigm are thrilled to be working with an innovative and progressive customer such as East Lancashire. The Caradigm Intelligence Platform will enable trusts such as ELHT to improve operational efficiency and care delivery, as well as support the move towards a digitised NHS. Most importantly it provides a platform to transform care through the strategic use of existing data assets sitting within the trust's clinical applications and infrastructure.
"Data liquidity across the organisation and the consolidation of data into manageable lists, workflows and views will enhance the value of the data that is collected across all of systems and applications at ELHT. This data will power rich analytics that will enable the trust to gain deeper insight into individual patients, patient populations, quality and performance measures; to better predict outcomes; and to rapidly identify the actions needed to improve clinical and operational performance," concluded Craven.
About East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust
East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust was established in 2003 and is a major acute Trust located in Lancashire in the heart of the North West of England, with Bolton and Manchester to the south, Preston to the west and the Pennines to the east forming a natural boundary with Yorkshire.
East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust provides high quality healthcare services primarily to the residents of East Lancashire, Blackburn and Darwen, which have a combined population in the region of 521,400. The Trust treats nearly three quarters of a million patients a year and employs 7,000 staff.
About Caradigm
Caradigm is a healthcare analytics and population health company dedicated to helping organisations improve care, reduce costs and manage risk. Caradigm analytics solutions provide insight into patients, populations and performance, enabling healthcare organisations to understand their clinical and financial risk and identify the actions needed to address it. Caradigm population health solutions enable teams to deliver the appropriate care to patients through effective coordination and patient engagement, helping to improve outcomes and financial results. The key to Caradigm analytics and population health solutions is a rich set of clinical, operational and financial data delivered to healthcare professionals within their workflows in near real-time. This data asset serves as the foundation for a growing number of innovative healthcare applications developed by Caradigm and industry partners, providing rapid incremental value to customers.