The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust is working towards aligning ourselves with the NHS Long Term Plan, working towards digital freedom.
Digital was something that our 0-19 service was not embracing with our paper-based recording system. So as part of our ongoing drive for continual improvement we knew that a move from paper recording was essential as it was creating a whole host of issues. The trouble with paper records, beyond the storage and securing implications, is consistency of data. A move towards an electronic case management system would overcome the challenges that our healthcare professionals previously faced when recording, and ensure our trust data is kept accurate and up-to-date.
A mix of professionals including our trust’s partnering family teams, health visitors and school nurses were involved in the development of our digital case management system, called ECLIPSE, with OLM. The advantage of this was that our healthcare professionals provided the knowledge of what was required from a system from their point of view. This ensured the best system possible; they have helped shape next generation case management technology for our trust.
Our cloud-based digital case management system means that we can see all details about a case within the 0 – 19 service at the click of a button. We can also add details such as the relationship with family, friends, police, and the school.
Being able to move away from recording cases on paper has made an enormous difference to our team. We have saved considerable time on administration and can spend more time with our patients. Our team access all the information on the system instead of from disparate files which would normally take us time to find and locate, which means the quality and availability of information is also improved.
Reporting has been simplified too. Now we’re able to export information very easily.
We’ve been able to integrate our ECLIPSE system with the Patient Administration System (PAS) too, and as soon as a person is added to PAS, they are automatically added to our case management system which provides a holistic view of every child rather than having to phone around for additional info which is what happened in the past. We’ve also ensured that it’s easily adaptable and we’re able to customise the system quickly and easily ourselves, allowing us to keep up with changes in legislation or best practice for instance.
We have been able to save 70 hours each day! This time saving means that we can complete an additional 350 appointments each week, as well as reducing the distance travelled each day by up to 480 miles.
We’ve calculated that this equates to between 7,000 and 8,000 appointments being made available over the course of five months. These savings were made possible by enabling our 0 – 19 team to work from anywhere at anytime.
It’s a simple change, and one that has resulted in practical implications that have resulted in substantial benefits.