Oldham Chronicle article23 Oct 2023 00:01
Https://www.oldham-chronicle.co.uk/news-features/139/main-news/153802/local-mp-insists-government-must-act-on-royal-oldham-raac
Meanwhile, the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, of which the Royal Oldham Hospital is one of its sites, has seen a dramatic reduction in clinical response times since it digitised paper-based referral systems across a range of key specialties, according to an independent review.
The study, which examined NCA NHS Foundation Trust’s use of clinical communications platform Bleepa to manage inpatient referrals, identified a reduction of almost 75% in average referral times across three clinical specialties when compared to previous paper based referral systems.
Bleepa referral data from July 2021 to April 2023 covering 10,000 patient referrals found that the average time from submission of a referral to first review across the trust’s respiratory, cardiology and gastroenterology specialisms at specific hospital sites was 0.55 days.
This was a reduction of 1.55 days compared to the 2.1 day average time lag recorded before the platform’s deployment across parts of the Greater Manchester trust.
The real-world evaluation, commissioned by Bleepa creators Feedback Medical and carried out by specialist consultancy Unity Insights, used quantitative data from two Northern Care Alliance trust sites - the Royal Oldham Hospital and Fairfield General Hospital in Bury – to examine the impact that Bleepa could have at a hospital, trust and Integrated Care System level.
Describing the impact that using Bleepa has had on clinical performance, Georges Ng Man Kwong, Chief Clinical Information Officer (Bury, Rochdale and Oldham) at Northern Care Alliance, said: “Access to the images with the referral has been really key.
"We worked with the Bleepa team to make sure we had a minimum data set for referral data.
"This was particularly important during the Covid pandemic.
“We’ve also found it good in terms of asynchronous working – we don’t necessarily have to traipse around the hospital with a list of patients to see referrals, we can manage them remotely.
"We’ve also then been able to message the team with clear instructions as to what’s been going on.
"The secure messaging has allowed us to progress patient care in a faster way.”
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