NHS Highland | Reducing Waiting Lists and Freeing Up Capacity
NHS Highland were keen to implement a way to validate patients on their waiting lists and prioritise patients in order of urgency.
Secure online patient engagement portal, with appointment management, waiting list validation and more dramatically reduces manual admin, and improves the patient experience.
Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (HHFT) provides acute hospital services to a population of around 600,000 patients across Hampshire and west Berkshire. With DNA rates high, this had an enormous impact, increasing both costs and waiting times.
HHFT were posting appointment letters to patients and had over 8,000 different letter templates to manage. Sending letters was inconsistent and a costly admin burden. There was no guarantee letters would arrive on time, if at all, causing patients to call the hospital and rearrange their appointment or simply forget about the appointment. A whole heap of appointment slots were being wasted.
The Trust also undertook a patient survey which identified that 75% of patients would prefer appointment notifications by email or SMS. This confirmed that Hampshire needed to make it more convenient for patients to digitally manage their own appointments, empower patients to be more involved with their care and also to reduce DNAs.
To meet the needs and preferences of patients, as well as reducing the admin burden and postage costs created by patient letters, HHFT deployed Patient Hub. This is our patient engagement portal, offering appointment notifications, waiting list validation, Patient Initiated Follow-up (PIFU) and NHS App integration.
“We are already seeing the positive impact of this work for our patients, and the time staff previously spent on sending out appointment letters is being used to better support patients and make the most of every available appointment.”
Alex Whitfield
Chief Executive, Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
As soon as the Trust deployed Patient Hub, patients were able to confirm, rebook or cancel appointments at the touch of a button from their device.
HHFT are seeing an average patient response rate of 79% – which is far above the industry average.
Instead of sending multiple letters to patients, HHFT now sends digital letters straight to the patient’s device. Patients can now easily read all relevant appointment information in one place.
HHFT have been able to reduce their average DNA rate down to 3.58% for patients that engage with Patient Hub. This represents a 39% improvement.
The Trust introduced Patient Hub for appointment management, enabling appointment notifications and reminders, delivered straight to each patient’s mobile device. Requests to rebook or cancel were also enabled so that patients could request, at the touch of a button, to get through to the relevant administrative team.
HHFT also made administrative changes, including changes to general booking processes and increased focus on short notice appointment management to drive down their DNA rate.
Reducing the DNA rate has enabled the Trust to reallocate cancellations, improving how clinician time and trust resources are used.
HHFT have gone from managing 8,000 letters to just three templates, taking away a huge admin burden from the stretched workforce.
With conditional formatting of the templates, all clinical departments’ needs are met, as they can personalise where necessary. And with many appointments now conducted by phone or video, templates are tailored for the appointment type: phone, video or in-person.
Using our Waiting List Validation solution, HHFT have been able to discharge 9.15% of patients from their waiting lists.
By engaging with patients with a simple text message, patients can easily let the Trust know whether they need to stay on the waiting list.
The Trust has seen an amazing discharge rate of 9.15% since go live. This has had an immediate impact on reducing the overall waiting list and allowing other patients to move up the list and access treatments they need in a quicker time.
When validating the waiting list, the Trust can also enquire about patient treatment preferences, providing specialty-based, customisable responses. This information is then fed back into a web-based portal providing automated worklists for the clinicians, empowering them to manage responses efficiently.
“We are hugely excited by this leap forward and strongly believe that this will help our patients to be better supported in their care.”
Dr Tamara Everington
Haematology Consultant and Associate Medical Director, Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
79%
patient uptake
65%
patient uptake in first 3 months
39%
reduction in DNAs
9.15%
of patients removed from waiting lists
Deliver positive benefits to patients, staff and your Trust with Patient Hub, our patient engagement portal.
NHS Highland were keen to implement a way to validate patients on their waiting lists and prioritise patients in order of urgency.
The Trust needed a modern, efficient and sustainable digital solution that would improve interactions — by creating more capacity for patient self-service — provide a better patient experience and optimise productivity.
RCHT embarked on an outpatient transformation programme to optimise their referrals and give patients greater control and convenience with their appointments