Emendo recently introduced a new team of clinical experts to help hospitals meet increasingly challenging operational targets and achieve better patient outcomes with CapPlan. Alan Spinks, Clinical Advisor shares his thoughts on The Patient Journey.
The Patient Journey
Procedural improvements are often made in isolated hospital departments, but without a holistic system-wide view, they can’t solve the underlying problems. For example, surgery waiting lists can be shortened for acute biliary pain/cholecystitis patients by conducting a Cholecystectomy upon presentation to the Emergency Department, but hospital staff need a view of the bigger picture to find out why there was such a long waiting list in the first place. If there are simply too many patients and not enough beds, then a different solution is needed.
The best way to examine the entire system is from the patient’s point of view – from the referral, assessment and pre-operative screening to surgery, recovery, discharge and follow-up or rehabilitation. It has been reported that over 60% of the journey may have no value to the patient – implying a lot of wasted time and resource.
It is clear that a stroke patient journey is very different and much more complex than a gallstone or sleep apnea case, for example. Stroke recovery could be 4 days or 4 years, impacting not only the patient but their entire family, and touching every department in the hospital. However evidence shows that demand for hospital services are actually quite similar across the western world. In a recent study, demand for stroke services overall was shown to be exactly the same at sites of similar demographics in the UK and New Zealand. So demand for services can be predictable if the data is properly analysed.
Any redesign of hospital processes and procedures necessitates input and commitment from all stakeholders. Typically a process map will be developed to identify constraints and bottlenecks, or unnecessary steps in moving from one department or procedure to another. A Value Stream Analysis can help identify sources of duplication and waste or error, areas where value is truly added and how technology can be applied to best effect.
Alan Spinks Clinical Advisor, Emendo