NHS CCG Bed Management System
Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) are NHS organisations set up by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to organise the delivery of NHS services in England.
The Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Luton (HBL) Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) Shared Services enables the NHS with innovative, safe and secure ways of working using the latest in cloud-based ICT services and solutions.
Background
Imagine you’re an NHS clinician deciding which locations to take your patients to. Beds are at a premium and NHS staff need to quickly identify one with the services your patient needs.
You may also remember last year’s flu outbreak, which caused a massive influx of patients needing care in specific clinics where there are more local elderly residents.
These are very real problems for local Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), who need to keep close track of all available beds, potential discharges, urgent care access, service availability and schedules. Forecasting is a critical part to ensure proper staffing and service availability during potential increases in patient intake.
The past
Historically, each of the relevant CCGs had a single point of contact, who would call each clinic and hospital in their group every few hours to assess bed and service availability. This allowed them to assess future discharges to properly forecast resource necessity, however, this manual task chews into not only this healthcare worker’s day, but hours of time for the staff on the other end of the line, who must verbally account for the current state of their hospital or clinic.
Although mostly accurate, human error is a factor with verbal communication, considering misunderstandings and background noise during calls. This was further complicated by staff availability to answer these calls to accurately provide updates, especially during busy times when bed audits may not have been done before the call.
The brief
HBL ICT were keen to utilise an online platform where clinics and hospitals could easily and securely update service status, bed availability and potential discharges. Historical data should also be available to allow trending and forecasting. All this should be available in an attractive, robust and easy-to-consume dashboard, which requires little training.
Intelogy was a clear choice for this project, due to our proven track record of providing cost-effective cloud solutions whilst providing the most benefit with a short timeline.
Up-to-date and easy to use
We made entering content a quick and simple task for clinic administrators by utilising a SharePoint custom list and a one-step process. All data is easily entered into a single form with clear field names and questions, eliminating any confusion, right from the organisational homepage, and this task takes less than a minute.
Better data = better care
Authorised NHS staff within these CCGs have access to live PowerBI dashboards and maps, showing all clinics in their area with a real-time data feed from Office 365, giving them an accurate snapshot of available beds and services to help them make quick and decisive navigational choices to get their patients the best care.
Forecasting for a healthy future
Local events, flu outbreaks and other factors generally result in a sudden influx of patients who need care in specific areas. The ability to forecast the need for additional resources and staff during outbreaks is vital in smooth operations, not only for patients but also for staff who may be stretched thinly if not adequately resourced.
By utilising Power BI, we provided the CCGs with a great dashboard to view critical information, as well as maps to view bed availability at-a-glance. These dashboards also allow historical views via date ranges to identify trends during specific outbreaks to assess staffing and service needs for similar events in the future.
An ever-expanding solution
Since the pilot program, this group of CCGs have expanded the number of users and grew the solution into a business-critical system that they can rely on. More partner organisations within the larger group are adopting the application as they see other organisations immensely benefitting from it.
