This case study was originally published on www.silverlinksoftware.com
Silverlink Software’s CaptureStroke solution has drastically improved the management capability of the Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust’s stroke unit since going live in June 2014.
Customer Profile
Company: Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust
Website: www.rcht.nhs.uk
The Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust is the main provider of acute and specialist hospital services in Cornwall, providing care to support almost 750,000 inpatient and day case admissions and emergency and outpatient attendances each year. The Trust’s stroke service treats about 850 stroke patients every year.
Business Needs
The Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust wanted a robust and interoperable data collection and care-performance monitoring solution, designed especially for the stroke care pathway, to enhance their management capability.
Solution
Silverlink’s CaptureStroke offers an end-to-end solution for the effective administration of a paper-light stroke pathway. Designed to be compliant with NHS processes and multiple stroke audits, CaptureStroke provides real-time data collection to streamline an efficient and integrated workflow. Developed with clinician collaboration, CaptureStroke guarantees quality best-practice for better patient outcomes.
Benefits and Values
· A rich and robust solution offering comprehensive, best-of-breed functionality.
· A highly interoperable platform suited for multi-disciplinary use.
· Designed to be modular, in-step with NHS best-practice, and ITK accredited.
· Easy to deploy, manage and maintain.
· Backed up by 20+ years of NHS domain experience.
“Unlike with our old system, with CaptureStroke we can immediately see how the service is performing against the national guidelines and target of 45 minutes of therapy per profession, up to 5 days per week.” Amanda Gibbs, Clinical Lead Physiotherapist of Early Supported Discharge Team for Stroke at RCHT
“From our research we realised that there is no other product like CaptureStroke on the market.” Katja Adie, Consultant in Care of Elderly, RCHT
“Without the excellent support from Silvelrink we wouldn’t have made our go-live date.” Tracy Bray, Senior Project Manager (Clinical Systems Programme) at RCHT
“When we had problems or issues Silverlink listened and helped us all the way through to achieve what we needed to do.” Tracy Bray, Senior Project Manager (Clinical Systems Programme) at RCHT
Customer Background
The Royal Cornwall Hospital NHS Trust (RCHT) serves a population of around 450,000 people, a figure often doubled by holidaymakers during the busiest times of the year. Keeping at the forefront of medical advances, the Trust has led developments in many clinical areas, and is committed to maximising the range of specialist care that can be offered locally.
Why the Trust Chose CaptureStroke
Funded by the Phoenix Stroke Charitable Appeal, CaptureStroke went live at RCHT in June 2014 and was integrated into Silverlink’s PCS offering soon after. Since the acquisition, Silverlink has developed the system and built on its existing functionality to further enhance reporting capability; while also developing a collaborative relationship with the Trust. Tracy Bray, Senior Project Manager (Clinical Systems Programme) at RCHT explained that: “Our go-live remains successful; clinicians are happily using the system and it appears to be embedded in their new working processes. We look forward to working with Silverlink going forward.”
CaptureStroke was identified as the best-of-breed solution for the Trust through a market-testing exercise that took into account testimonials from clinicians already using the system at other NHS hospitals. “From our research we realised that there is no other product like CaptureStroke on the market,” said Katja Adie, Consultant in Care of Elderly at RCHT.
Easy Implementation
CaptureStroke was implemented at RCHT with great success due to the ease of transaction and effective training provided. A highly responsive Deployment & Support team from Newcastle – consisting of three dedicated developers and two QA analysts – visited the site and trained RCHT’s IT staff to ensure the go-live met the Trust’s expectations and requirements. The implementation process included configuration, testing (full clinician UAT), deployment and data reporting, running full operational pilot, as well as engagement and collaboration. “Without the excellent Silverlink Deployment & Support team, nor RCHT’s enthusiastic, highly committed Clinical and Back Office Teams, we wouldn’t have made our go-live date,” said Tracy Bray.
Due to the system’s intuitive and user friendly design, it was really easy for the users to understand and learn how to use it; only a 30 minute intensive training session was required. Over a week the Deployment &Support test team helped users resolve any issues, and their feedback led to additional recording capabilities being implemented that assured a solution tailored to the clinician’s needs for patient care.
Continual Support
The clinical uptake of the system was successful, with positive feedback coming from the ground staff. “I've had good feedback about the support team from various members of our local implementation team – from clinicians to our back-office IT work stream-leads. We really appreciate everything the team has done for us throughout the whole process,” said Tracy Bray.
The support team is constantly available to offer support when needed; “when we have had problems or issues – some due to local standards and requirements – the support team listened and helped us all the way through to achieve what we needed to do,” said Tracy Bray.
Streamlined Audit Practice
CaptureStroke is being used in the Trust’s stroke unit as a real-time data collection tool to streamline the workflow and data analysis process. “Unlike with our old system, with CaptureStroke we can immediately see how the service is performing against the national guidelines and target of 45 minutes of therapy per profession, up to 5 days per week,” said Amanda Gibbs, Clinical Lead Physiotherapist of Early Supported Discharge Team for Stroke.
The system captures niche data that is relevant to particular pathways from the Trust’s PAS system that satisfies the requirements of the multiple stroke audits, thereby improving the audit management processes. “With CaptureStroke we don’t have to rekey information because it pulls it directly from the PAS as a single record specific to the stroke domain,” said Tracy Bray.
CaptureStroke ensures the Trust has complete data collection for patients for the national audit for stroke SSNAP as well to improve patient outcomes. “The system enables clinicians to input and own data; at a glance we can see whether best- practice has been achieved for patients. Such improved data on patient activity and their level of rehabilitation enables each clinical discipline to better analyse staff and patient activity,thereby allowing an increase of patient contact time which leads to improved outcomes for patients,” said Katja Adie.
The data collected by CaptureStroke also reflects the Trust’s performance against the key indicators of best care. “Before the system we relied on paper audits that had to be sent to London and then sent back to us, which took up to four months. By using CaptureStroke we can monitor what’s going on in real-time and see how we’re performing, ” said Tracy Bray.
“The Trust must ensure quality data collection to support the service, maximise tariffs and evidence CQUIN targets where applicable; CaptureStroke is helping us to do this,” continued Tracy Bray.
Silverlink will continue collaborating with the Trust to evolve the system to provide further roadmap capabilities and the option of testing and reviewing prior to User Acceptance Testing (UAT). “CaptureStroke will help us to ensure Gold Standard Care for all of our stroke patients, and to maintain and improve our audit score,” said Katja Adie.
Paper-light Management
CaptureStroke has dramatically reduced the reliance on paper at RCHT, and as a result has cut stationary and storage costs, as well as the paper costs associated with audit reporting. The system has also enhanced the Trust’s management capability by granting direct access to hospital data and notes, which are used to prepare performance operational reports and track patients. “Our old system of data collection required us to complete paper forms which were then manually entered by an administrator into a system. In CaptureStroke the data is being entered immediately at the point-of- care,” said Amanda Gibbs.
Through CaptureStroke’s inbuilt intuitive clinical dashboards and standard system reporting, all healthcare personnel aiding in the patient’s recovery have secure immediate visibility of care and treatment targets already met. “Time is being saved on retrospective input of care information, which can be reinvested to improved quality of care and patient contact. On top of that, care target information is securely and instaneously available to all clinicians who are involved in a patient’s recovery, and are now able to fully track the patient’s journey through the stroke pathway,” said Amanda Gibbs.
Consultants now spend less of their time with patients completing admin-related tasks, and admin staff have dramatically cut the amount of hours - up to 10 hours a week - dedicated to auditing.
There are further plans underway to implement Silverlink’s CaptureResearch module and offline working functionality. This would ensure a safe and secure working environment when healthcare workers visit patient homes, replacing the myriad of paper forms with a slick, real-time system.
About Silverlink
Silverlink has over 20 years of development experience dealing with the NHS, which gives them a deep understanding of its processes and requirements allowing them to promptly offer practical solutions to new initiatives. There is also continuous investment in PCS development to meet the needs of the UK market and the NHS while improving existing functionality.
Contact Information
For more information on how Silverlink’s CaptureStroke can improve your organisation’s workflow, contact us through www.silverlinksoftware.com/contactus or find out more at www.silverlinksoftware.com.
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