Saving 20,000 NHS hours a year was the result of an improved patient discharge process at Southend Hospital

The Challenges
Southend Hospital NHS Trust, treating 70,000 in-patients a year, wanted to improve the patient discharge process with speed and efficiency.  When patients leave hospital after treatment the discharge process sometimes fails, caused by paperwork that gets mislaid, failure to reach the GP through the post or simply illegible handwriting. Whether by human error, or simply pressure on overworked staff, such mishaps can result in serious consequences for post-hospital patient care.

Southend Hospital decided to look for a technology solution to help manage and improve the discharge process, currently taking at least 30 minutes to complete for every patient, absorbing time that doctors or nurses could be caring for other patients or reassuring relatives.

Solution
WCI developed a solution based on Microsoft Office InfoPath and delivered a pilot solution for the trust in just 20 days, for the first five users.  The forms were automatically populated with information from the Trust’s Patient Administration System (PAS). The clinician or nurse logged into the network using normal Microsoft Windows® login credentials on aTablet PC and accessed the InfoPath form for the patient waiting to go home

Benefits
The automated patient discharge forms will save Southend Hospital NHS Trust the equivalent of 20,000 working hours a year enabling doctors and nurses to spend more time with patients and fewer working hours on paperwork.  Benefits will be primarily experienced by the patients, with paperwork handled electronically, nurses and doctors will have more time for the human touch.

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SouthendDischargecasestudyJan07.pdf