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Kettering Rolls Out Real-Time Patient Flow System Following Successful Pilot Go-Live.

7th September 2020

  • Pilot go-live completed on Covid-19 wards
  • Wards using digital touchscreen whiteboards to capture a real-time picture of capacity and needs in one consolidated view

Staff at Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (KGH) are going live with a new real-time clinical system for better managing patient journeys through the hospital.

The Trust is the first in the country to go live with System C’s Patient Flow software, a major new part of the company’s CareFlow integrated EPR. With real-time feeds from the Trust’s PAS and clinical systems, the software provides an accurate, live picture of capacity and needs at the ward and Trust level, with a view to helping reduce length of stay, improve clinical outcomes and produce cost savings.

Dione Rogers, chief nursing information officer, said: 

"Patient Flow’s large touch screen boards display all the information you need on the wards at a glance. For the staff, it gives them a clear, easy to use framework for managing the patient from admission to discharge. It is also making board rounds so much smoother and significantly reduces the need for paper-based records."

Information displayed includes bed status, clinical data captured as part of the clinical workflow, outstanding tasks and discharge plans, all in one single view. It creates a real-time picture of hospital bed usage and demand and provides full visibility of expected arrivals; both elective and non-elective.

As well as touch screen whiteboards, clinical teams can access Patient Flow on mobile and desktop devices and have the flexibility to customise their own views to display information by ward or hospital level. Layouts are fully customisable which include capability to create columns and view activity summaries.

Kettering initially piloted Patient Flow on two Covid-19 wards. “The feedback from the pilot ward staff was excellent, despite the huge pressures they were already under coping with coronavirus patients,” Dione said. The Trust is now rolling the software out throughout the hospital and has already chalked up over 45,000 patient/board transactions on the system since going live.

“I’m delighted with the progress we have made with Patient Flow”, said Andy Callow, chief digital information officer at KGH. He added:

"As a Trust we are harnessing our information to know more in real-time so we can make better decisions and improve outcomes for our patients. At any given time, we will have a system-wide bed status at our fingertips and our capacity planning will be improved in turn."

Patient Flow provides direct support for the Emergency Care Improvement Programme (ECIP); identifying ‘stranded’ patients and the Reason to Reside campaign, highlighting wasted time in a patient’s journey.

System C designed the application in line with the SAFER model which has been recognised by NHS Digital as a practical tool to reduce delays for patients in adult inpatient wards.

The roll out of Patient Flow is a significant milestone in Kettering’s 10-year ambitious digital transformation plan, working in partnership with System C. Its aim is to improve care provided to patients by delivering mobile clinical and decision-making support to clinicians, by improving the flow of patients through the 600-bed hospital and by fully digitising the patient record. Its progress to date is documented in a new video, showing how KGH staff are using the system.

Dr Ian Denley, joint chief executive at System C commented,

"We are proud to be partnering with Kettering on its digital transformation journey. KGH is a very ambitious organisation with a can-do team and it is making great strides towards becoming a digital Trust."

Patient leaving hospital