Our approach-how Pathpoint has supported trauma & orthopaedics to deliver safe and efficient care
Communication and information exchange challenges faced by healthcare organisations have been at the core of Open Medical’s mission to improve the delivery of health services to the public. Overcoming these challenges has been the driving force behind the continued innovation of the Open Medical Pathpoint platform: to try and provide a clinician-led patient pathway management system (as opposed to a records system) that:
is fully customisable to unique departmental workflows among remotely distributed clinical teams;
allows secure information sharing within governance and compliance frameworks; accessible through the Health and Social Care Network or HSCN cloud to permit functionality and scalability;
enables structured data capture and flexible data models to facilitate continual departmental audit and improve patients’ experience and outcomes.
We have supported clients to completely digitise their Trauma & Orthopaedic, Dermatology, Plastic Surgery, ITU and Ophthalmology workflows from the point of referral through to discharge. More recently, we have also supported a university-led multi-centre dermatology trial using a trial management workflow.
The cloud-based platform requires just an internet browser with HSCN access, no pre-installed software or hardware, and has full interoperability with other healthcare IT systems, including hospitals’ Electronic Patient Record systems or EPR. The built-in natural language processing technology supports clinicians to improve efficiency and decision making at all points along the patient pathway, as well as providing management teams with data driven insights of real-time departmental performance and patient tracking.
Our clients in Trauma & Orthopaedics have delivered improvements over a variety of key performance metrics (KPI), including time to theatre for patients requiring an operation of femur fracture (NOF) breach rates, and time to assessment for virtual fracture clinic referrals. Utilising software that supports patient pathway management and HSCN cloud-based technology has enabled our consultants to effectively triage patients virtually into the appropriate management streams, for example urgent follow-up or face-to-face clinic appointment, and increase departmental capacity by diverting patients remotely to physiotherapy services or their GP for follow-up where appropriate.
Improving trauma workflow management supported by a Virtual Fracture Clinic model of care has resulted in a reduction of between 20-25% in face-to-face clinic appointments required after referral in our partner NHS trusts. This has led to a significant cost saving as a result of reducing the requirement to provide additional clinic sessions at premium rate, as well as the need for locum doctors to support these additional sessions. Where patients require a face-to-face follow up appointment, they can be triaged directly into the correct sub-speciality clinic at the first point of contact, rather than being randomly allocated into a general fracture clinic, with the risk of this being the incorrect clinic in cases requiring sub-specialty care, for example complex joint injuries. Improved planning and reduction in unnecessary appointments also leads to a reduction in other indirect costs including; costs associated with patient complaints or litigation, transportation and administrative costs, benefitting both the trust directly and also the local health economy.
Digital patient pathway implementation has also resulted in a 40% reduction in the time taken for non-admitted patients to have surgery after injury, largely due to improved operational oversight and coordination of care. In the majority of cases, the system has resulted in patients receiving consultant-led care within 24 hours of the initial acute referral being made to the trauma & orthopaedic team, regardless of whether the patient was admitted to the hospital or discharged from the emergency department or referring unit. More about our specific impact at departmental level within Trauma & Orthopaedics can be found in the following case study
The Open Medical approach
In order to generate the clinical engagement and appeal to frontline users, which is a vital component of successful transformational projects, digital systems must be designed around user requirements. Open Medical systems can be tailored to meet both user and patient needs, taking into account any local departmental and/or commissioning requirements. Our products have been built by senior clinicians for clinicians, who understand the complex processes involved in treating patients safely and efficiently and how this can be facilitated using cloud-based solutions. Open Medical aims to facilitate treatment pathways for patients delivered by front line staff, resulting in both local service and system wide improvements. We do not take a one size fits all approach, as we recognise specific user needs and variations in practice that exist among healthcare organisations at multiple levels. We also understand that the patient journey is not a series of unrelated events at specific points in time that require recording individually; rather a series of complex interconnected pathways that navigate multiple teams, often at different geographical locations, with the need to record information at various points of the patient pathway, as well as the pathway itself.
If you would like to find out more information or request a demo, do not hesitate to contact us