Case Studies

Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS FT: Patient Referral Data Cleansing Pre-Migration Project

Requirement

As the Trust prepared for the transition from the legacy IPM system to the Epic EPR, a crucial aspect involved migrating data, notably a substantial volume of open patient referrals, with approximately 700,000 categorized as ‘at risk.’ This ambiguity regarding clinical risk necessitated a review to close referrals not requiring continuation, optimising operational capacity, and reducing potential data quality errors during the EPR transition.

Approach and Solution

Ideal Health collaborated with the Trust to streamline the closure of patient referrals. Amidst challenges, including an IT system outage in July disrupting operations, the project adjusted its focus towards recent activities (APR-JUL 22) to ensure a comprehensive review.

The team successfully completed 201,600 validations, initially aiming to close 80% of validated referrals, aligning with Trust stakeholder expectations. The focus was on complex and uncertain referrals and providing sample validation for specific cohorts aiming for potential bulk closure where feasible.

Their efforts resulted in closing 78.4% of validated referrals, rising to 80% when excluding recent activity cohorts.  The Trust aimed to close 60% of historic open referrals including the cohorts assigned to Ideal Health. This was successfully achieved through a blend of manual validation and clinically assured bulk closures. Notably, the leadership of stakeholders facilitated this success.

Sample validations were conducted for specific referral types, such as Cardiology Diagnostic Referrals, Endoscopy Referrals, and Medicine Referrals post Inpatient Discharge. Closure ratios of over 95% were achieved for these samples, enabling bulk closures while ensuring clinical safety parameters were met, ensuring that the remaining open referrals required future activity bookings or service reviews for discharge.

Outcome and Benefits

The project significantly optimised data quality pre-EPR migration, ensuring that only necessary referrals remained open, thereby reducing potential errors in the new system. While successful, further investigation into referrals with the last event of ‘waiting list removed’ and a comprehensive data quality review post EPR implementation was recommended for patient safety and seamless data transition. This review is currently underway.

By meticulously reviewing and closing patient referrals, Ideal Health supported the NHS Trust in streamlining data quality and optimising operations pre-EPR migration. This proactive approach ensured a smoother transition to the new system, fostering enhanced patient care and data integrity in the upcoming EPR landscape.          

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What Our Clients Say About Us

  • "Ideal Health contributed towards the success of our Apollo Programme. They provided a team of 100 trainers who collaborated with our programme leaders and trainers to develop training materials aligned to our training strategy. Together, they created 800 engaging e-learning modules and delivered face-to-face training to over 30,000 staff across multiple locations. This comprehensive approach ensured that our workforce was well-prepared for the Epic programme's go live."

    Emma Summers Head of Transformation – Workforce & Engagement | Readiness, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS FT
  • “Ideal were a valuable partner as we engaged operational teams to translate our high-level ambitions into a meaningful vision and digital objectives. Their impartiality and customer focus meant they were able to communicate clearly with colleagues, identify common problems, and sensitively move past stress and ‘pet peeves’ to get to the heart of the difficulties our teams were experiencing in accessing the right information day to day”

    Claire Waite Care Integration Manager for Capacity and Flow Programme, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICS
  • “The E-Learning Development Manager from Ideal worked closely with my Training team to develop e-learning content for Maternity. The modules delivered were concise, thorough, and easy to absorb. The structure was clear, logical and effective, and included elements of interactivity and video. There has been a lot of praise by the SMEs and staff regarding the high quality of the work produced on a very complex specialty. I found working with Ideal to be a very positive experience. I would highly recommend for any related work”

    Michael Paul IT Training Manager, Lewisham and Greenwich NHS
  • “Ideal's Digital Maturity review has enabled us to refocus our Digital and Data Strategies post-Covid, appreciating which shared and individual activities could support our ambitions for digital healthcare in our area. We are now taking the recommendations forward via a series of workshops across ICS partners to reprioritise and plan our next phase of activities”

    Stuart Lea CDIO and Marc Talbot Programme Manager, Stoke and Staffordshire ICS
  • “We were most impressed with the calibre of floor walking staff supplied by Ideal. They were highly professional in their approach and demonstrated a fully comprehensive understanding of the system”

    CRS Training Lead Barts and the London NHS Trust
  • “Ideal demonstrated great agility in supplying experienced support for the Trust’s EPR requirements and mapping exercises. They showed great flexibility in meeting the Trust’s needs, clearly articulating the approach and costs associated. This coupled with advice and experience enabled the ‘As Is’ and ‘To Be’ processes mapping to complete to time and quality”

    Peter Bradbury EPR Programme Manager, Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust
  • “Ideal has an excellent reputation as a top-class training provider working exclusively in the health sector. With their experience and demonstrable track record in delivering IT training solutions to NHS organisations, Ideal was the clear choice for BT and Connecting for Health”

    Jenny Craggs Training Lead, NHS Connecting for Health
  • “We recognised the enormous impact a good floorwalking team has on the success of project implementation. With Ideal Training’s previous track record and experience in Cerner implementations, we felt confident in the service offered and would certainly consider working with them in the future”

    Carole Shuff Programme Manager West Somerset Family
  • “For the implementation of our EPR+ programme, the Trust needed a partner who we were confident could help us successfully deliver the system. Ideal demonstrated an approach which married up to our requirements”

    Cara Williams CDIO and SRO for the EPR+ programme, Countess of Chester NHS Foundation Trust (COCH)
  • “The trainers Ideal provided have been brilliant. They not only provided the highest quality training and feedback, but were always prepared to go the extra mile when needed. Thanks for helping develop a relationship that we can rely on and when we’re looking for capacity to roll out the rest of eRecord we’ll be on the phone. Look after the trainers we’ve had – they’re a great bunch”

    Simon Holloway eRecord Training Manager, Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
  • “The trainers supplied by Ideal did a very thorough job in preparing staff at the Royal Free, including adapting the programme to meet the needs and availability of the consultants. The trainers further enhanced the service by gathering information from the shop floor and feeding back to the training team. We were delighted with the service we received from Ideal”

    Sarah Kennard CRS Training Manager, Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust
  • "A big shout out to the Ideal Health team for being super friendly, flexible, and approachable. The more we work together, the better it gets. Familiar faces become part of the Go-Live team, learning the geography and culture of the organisation. Including the Ideal Health management team behind the scenes, we always feel fully supported with a "can-do" attitude that helps us make improvements every Go-Live. For those returning for the March Go-Lives, I look forward to working with you again!"

    Rachel Lock Digital Project Manager, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
  • “Perot Systems has worked with Ideal on provision of floor walking services to support large scale Cerner implementations. The success of the implementations and the smooth execution of the go lives have rested significantly on the success of the services that Ideal Training provide. The staff themselves are extremely knowledgeable in both the product and the NHS operations they support with specialist SME’s provided as demanded”.

    Gary Birks Perot Systems Europe Ltd
  • “Ideal made a big difference. By using Ideal as the foundation of our floorwalking support, and augmenting this with Trust staff, we were able to ensure a constant, capable presence with our end-users 24/7. This would not have been possible without Ideal and reduced the impact on the wider Trust saving us from having to pause additional activity.”

    Adam Wisdish ICS Senior Digital Programme Manager, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust

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