South Tyneside and Sunderland makes use of affected person portal to save lots of admin hours
South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Basis Belief (STSFT) has rolled out a affected person engagement platform to assist save on administration hours.
The affected person engagement platform from Healthcare Communications delivers digital appointment letters to sufferers and permits them to make use of an app to reschedule or cancel appointments. The platform has tackled the issue of a scarcity of accountability for paper processes and effectively as the difficulty of sending paper letters for brief discover appointments.
The belief joins 37 different NHS trusts who’re utilizing the platform – together with Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Basis belief who went reside with it in July this 12 months.
STSFT estimates it has saved a median of 37 hours monthly which frees up time to deal with affected person care. It has additionally been capable of supply short-notice cancelled appointments to sufferers on ready lists and diminished the variety of ‘didn’t attend’ appointments by 4 per cent.
Laura Bond, head of outpatients and medical administration South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Basis Belief, stated: “The Affected person Engagement Portal has reworked our appointment administration processes. Our admin employees now not have the burden of manually sending letters or answering pointless inbound calls, giving them extra time to deal with caring for our sufferers.
“Transferring our affected person appointment communications to a digital workflow means we are actually capable of ship info to sufferers in a format that works greatest for them. There are a lot of advantages to our organisation and administrative staff; it has actually helped us rework our division and the standard of service we are able to present.”
The Affected person Portal means admin groups are capable of simply configure affected person letters and there may be additionally a fail-safe course of triggering a paper letter to sufferers if digital communications are usually not accessed inside 24 hours.
Kenny Bloxham, managing director, Healthcare Communications, stated of the belief’s expertise: “With greater than 700,000 letters despatched digitally, belief employees are spending a lot much less time on administrative processes, releasing up extra time for affected person care and guaranteeing that appointments will be reutilised.
“The fee-saving advantages and enhancements to accountability have additionally been important, and we’re trying ahead to extending the usage of the expertise to neighborhood providers, radiology and different surgical procedure departments. With the urge for food for personalised affected person communication rising, the swap to digital-first communication is a crucial step for any organisation eager to open the digital entrance door and take away obstacles for sufferers to obtain their healthcare.”
The belief estimates it has made annual price financial savings of £240,000 due to the expertise.
The roll out went reside throughout STSFT’s outpatient service in October 2019 and the belief now hopes to increase its use to neighborhood providers, radiology and different surgical procedure departments. From November 2021 it additionally plans to deploy the Affected person Portal to assist the medical prioritisation and validation of its elective ready lists.
