How Did This NHS Foundation Trust Transform Patient-Referrals?

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NHS – Transforming Patient Referrals

Our customer is one of the largest healthcare providers in the UK. Employing some 20,000 staff, they operate across a number of different sites and satellite units.

During 2019-20 the main trust absorbed additional organisations with a strategy to unify and integrate the various IT systems. Our customer used a process for patent-referrals based on the Responsiv Unity Process Module.

Meeting performance requirements at the right price

The demand for patient-referrals was predicted to rise significantly, and the process needed modification to properly manage the additional use-cases demanded from the merger. As part of this process transformation project, the customer was also looking for a cost saving in its technology infrastructure.

Responsiv created a proposed topology for the new system that could build on the existing investment while leveraging the ability to selectively scale the Responsiv Unity platform.

The new platform is in production and handling demand of over 10x the original, with only a 1.5x increase in overall capacity/cost.

Refactoring process code to take advantage of new features in Responsiv Unity

The NHS technical team has a significant depth of experience and understanding of the Process module technology, and for the NHS patent-referral process.

Responsiv began the project by conducting a focused workshop to identify the core issues and objectives of the project. Once objectives were established, we began to redevelop parts of the existing referral process, keeping what worked, while refining code to take best advantage of the latest version of the process management software.

Responsiv upgraded the NHS trust’s existing Responsiv Unity installation and extended its capacity as part of a managed solution, building three environments monitored via a central console. We then supported the customer-led deployment of the new patent-referral process.

Successful project and successful support

Responsiv provided “hyper-care” support for the application that we refactored, as well as the new Responsiv Unity installation. The hyper-care provided a highly cost-effective way to support the first few months of live production for the new application.

We then moved to a business-as-usual (BAU) support model based on the Responsiv Unity Extended Support offering. This means that the Trust’s Responsiv Unity Console is authorised to create Incident and Warning tickets directly into the Responsiv Assist service desk.

Responsiv then provide an active monitoring, incident response, and flexible support service to the NHS trust – all under one agreement.

The scope of support includes the entire Responsiv Unity software stack, including process management software, monitoring and management components, and the operating system. Making it a highly efficient, joined up solution to support.

Saving more lives – for less cost

Responsiv Unity has already made a big difference to the healthcare provider’s business operations. An electronic, automated patient referral system directs requests to the relevant department where they are accepted or rejected promptly according to specified criteria.

A monitoring agent makes information readily available to those who need it, so they can act on it quickly and make informed decisions.

• As a result, patient waiting times have been reduced by an average of two weeks – partly by removing an inefficient, paper-based process.
• The efficient fully trackable electronic referral system has allowed for health issues to be treated sooner, the cost of treatment to be reduced and has ultimately contributed to saving lives and improving the health of patients.

Key points

1. Responsiv can support your enterprise automation and connectivity projects and will support the resulting solution
2. Responsiv has experience with NHS systems and working practices that helps to accelerate teamwork and delivery – ultimately reducing the cost.
3. Responsiv are happy to provide subscription services and fixed outcome professional services.