Surgical efficiency?

Editorial Type: Opinion Date: 2021-04-01 Views: 1,486 Tags: Document, Healthcare, Strategy, Digital Transformation, Covid-19, Compliance, Kodak Alaris PDF Version:
COVID-19 has heightened the already urgent need for more effective data sharing in the NHS, argues Simon Hill, Sales Director for Northern Europe, Kodak Alaris

There has been much debate about the speed at which the NHS has embraced digital transformation. A National Audit Office (NAO) report titled 'Digital transformation in the NHS', which was prepared before the coronavirus pandemic hit the UK and published in May 2020, concluded that the track record for digital transformation in the NHS has been "poor" for at least the past two decades. According to the NAO, NHS organisations face "significant" digital transformation challenges and the programme has struggled with changing strategies, lack of funding and confusion.

However, COVID-19 has been a catalyst for accelerating the rate of digital transformation taking place within the NHS. As part of efforts responding to the pandemic, many Trusts have successfully delivered digital solutions at pace and scale. In the sixth in a series of 'Spotlight on' briefings aimed specifically at sharing key information on the impact of the pandemic on NHS Trusts, NHS Providers stated that the sector is becoming more ambitious about how it can accelerate digital ways of working. The membership organisation for the hospital, mental health, community and ambulance services that treat patients and service users in the NHS, said that there is now an opportunity to build on the progress made and truly transform services to meet the needs and expectations of patients, service users and carers.

MOVING TOWARDS A DIGITAL-FIRST NHS
The fast adoption of digital technologies and digital ways of working have helped healthcare providers to continue to deliver effective care while experiencing exceptional demand for services during the pandemic.

Ensuring that the right information about the right patient is in the right place at the right time, is vital to the NHS providing effective services. And in the face of unprecedented pressures, the ability to ensure clinicians can seamlessly access and share up-to-date patient data has never been more important.

The Department of Health and Social Care has a long-standing ambition to digitally transform the NHS and enable seamless sharing of data between the many organisations that make up the health and social care system. Yet whilst the use of electronic patient records are widespread, the interoperability of systems remains an ongoing challenge. In response to the NAO report, Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said: "NHS systems were originally supposed to be sharing data seamlessly by 2005. Fifteen years later, the NHS hasn't even established a complete set of standards for Trusts and the IT industry to follow."

IMPROVE ACCESS TO INFORMATION
Researchers at the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London examined inconsistencies with electronic medical record systems across 152 acute hospital trusts in NHS England over a one-year period. The study found NHS Trusts were using at least 21 different electronic medical record systems, leading to "critical deficiencies". Many of these systems are unable to effectively share information.

Some 49% of Trusts were identified as using the same three systems, prompting researchers to call for these systems to be more interoperable to "improve access to information for more than one million hospital encounters every year".

NHS Providers argue that truly integrated health and care records will lead to the better coordination and management of care delivery. In order to achieve this, IT systems in healthcare need to be able to 'talk' to each other so that electronic patient records are available to - and can be updated by - clinicians in different organisations such as GP practices and hospitals. Connected systems will ensure that medical professionals have immediate access to relevant and appropriate patient data from care providers and settings. Greater standardisation of data, infrastructure, platforms and APIs will create a health and care system which is more joined-up, safer and more efficient.


"The fast adoption of digital technologies and digital ways of working have helped healthcare providers to continue to deliver effective care while experiencing exceptional demand for services during the pandemic. Ensuring that the right information about the right patient is in the right place at the right time, is vital to the NHS providing effective services. And in the face of unprecedented pressures, the ability to ensure clinicians can seamlessly access and share up-to-date patient data has never been more important. "

COST IMPLICATIONS OF INEFFICIENT PROCESSES
Recently, Kodak Alaris commissioned research among frontline healthcare professionals to better understand how electronic health records are created, accessed and shared, as well as the impact and potential cost implications of inefficiencies caused by the use of multiple systems.

65% of the people polled worked in NHS hospitals or GP practices, a further 15% were employed by other public bodies such as local authority funded services, care homes and mental health providers, and the remaining respondents worked within private healthcare settings. The majority, (71%), of respondents' jobs involved dealing with the movement of patient records 'all of' or 'lots of' the time, while a further 14% managed this 'some of' the time.

Overall 62% of the respondents who deal with the movement of patient records reported that electronic patient records that are sent between Trusts, providers or departments, using different systems, cannot be accessed in the optimal way (i.e. instantaneous access and the ability to view all of the content) more than 20% of the time. One-fifth said that this occurred between 40 and 60% of the time.

When asked roughly how long it takes to rectify the situation and access all necessary records, the responses were mixed. Almost half (47%) admitted it could take anywhere between five and twenty minutes, 34% reported it takes a couple of minutes and just 14% said less than a minute.

To put this into perspective, the number of document movements per day ranged from 0 to 10,000, with an average of 459 individual movements per day.

An overwhelming majority of survey respondents (92%), said that there was a cost to the patient as a result of any delay in the ability to access patient records, with 35% stating the cost was 'significant' or 'quite significant'.

While the exact cost to the NHS of the current lack of interoperability between systems has not been quantified, using this research as a base point, across one year, this wasted time could cost one NHS hospital around £64,000.

UNLOCK THE POWER OF INFORMATION
Back in 2015, the NHS set out a very public ambition for Paperless 2020, which aims to eventually eliminate paper at the point of care and support the overall digital evolution of the entire organisation. This has now been revised into a new target to reach a core level of digitisation by 2024.

COVID-19 has forced digital transformation upon healthcare organisations and the use of digital services has increased at a speed previously thought unimaginable. Now is not the time to put the brakes on as the ability to effectively and efficiently unlock the value of information will be critical for the NHS' ongoing digital transformation.

Document capture is the first critical step to automating paper-based processes and creating digital records to ensure medical information is directly accessible at the point of care. With scanners, services and software solutions from Kodak Alaris, organisations are able to identify the bottlenecks created by manual and ad-hoc workflows to improve the flow of information, provide better visibility into patient history and ensure continuity of care in an ever-changing climate.

More info: www.alarisworld.com