Optimising surgical hubs by harnessing the power of digital solutions
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In April 2022, 6.48 million patients were waiting for their elective surgery. A frightening figure that confirms the severity of the situation and its urgent needs. As a response, surgical hubs were established as centres dedicated to elective care in order to maximise operational capacity and reduce the elective backlog. Stand-alone hubs are a model of surgical hubs that are entirely separate sites dedicated solely for elective care. Once established, stand-alone hubs need to factor in various aspects and transform their processes so they can successfully address the growing elective waiting lists.
The hubs will receive patients from multiple organisations within the region. This means that multidisciplinary teams will need full visibility of the most up-to-date scheduled theatre lists with all pertinent patient information. Digital solutions can provide the necessary infrastructure to bring about efficient elective centres.
PathpointⓇ SurgiCare - Open Medical’s cloud-based, end-to-end surgical pathway management platform, can provide stand-alone hubs with real-time overview of all hub activity. SurgiCare offers full visibility of digital theatre lists, filtered waiting lists, patient status and tags, preoperative assessments (POA), patient consent, risk stratification, equipment request, and clinical notes, all of which are automated and tailored to the surgical hub's unique requirements. SurgiCare truly encompasses a holistic view of the entire patient journey. This allows theatres to operate at their maximum capacity, effectively allocating resources and minimising delays, cancellations, and underbooked operating rooms. Additionally, with access to all the necessary information, including patient tags, patients can be identified when they are not fit to be operated on within the hub. This information can then be communicated via SurgiCare to ensure patients are operated on at the appropriate site. Surgical hub staff can save valuable time and relieve the administrative burden, allowing them to spend more time on delivering high-quality patient care.
As a cloud-based platform, SurgiCare transcends organisational boundaries; it is accessible from anywhere, at any time, with tiered user permissions, enabling vital information to be shared while adhering to governance regulations. It facilitates effective cross-site and cross-team communication between surgical hubs and organisations, allowing all relevant teams to track patients along their elective surgical pathways. Importantly, SurgiCare captures granular, coded clinical data that can be utilised meaningfully for future service planning, providing the relevant information for additional efficiency improvements. SurgiCare can serve as the unified portal for all surgical hub activity.
Elective centres can flourish given the right tools, and adopting digital solutions such as SurgiCare can help maintain and increase capacity, support staff, and enhance patient care, effectively reducing the mounting elective waiting lists. Surgical hubs and SurgiCare were both created to address the elective backlog, and when used in tandem, they can revolutionise elective care delivery.