Saving over 20,000 bed days in one year
Infinity Health has supported remote care coordination at London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust since January 2020. The short-term assessment, rehabilitation and reablement service (STARRS) staff provide ‘hospital at home’ care and use Infinity to manage and coordinate their workload and communicate with each other, from anywhere. The team includes doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, pharmacists and administrative staff.
Three years on, Infinity has increased capacity in the team, allowing them to support more patients to be discharged from hospital to receive care and treatment at home. This has helped the trust save over 20,000 bed days in one year.
Background
STARRS staff provide acute-level care in patients’ homes. The multidisciplinary team helps to reduce admissions and enables early discharge from hospital by identifying patients in inpatient wards and A&E who could be safely treated at home.
Previously, the service had been using an outdated system and handwritten paper lists to manage their workload. Staff would print out their task list in the morning, take it with them to patients’ homes, and add handwritten notes and observations throughout the day. Multiple calls were made throughout the day from the hospital-based team to the clinicians on visits, updating on tasks and patients to be seen, and from clinicians to the hospital asking questions and gathering information required for patients. They would later return to the hospital and dictate their notes to the service’s clinician of the day, who would transcribe information manually into the system and plan tasks for the next day.
This process was inefficient and involved duplication, as the same information was exchanged across paper and digital platforms multiple times in one day. Staff lost time on phone calls and returning to base to relay the results of their visits. The clinician of the day had no real-time visibility of the team’s activity. Additionally, using paper to record information came with its own risks, such as loss, damage, or ineligible handwriting, which could result in critical information not being received and acted upon. Tasks could be delayed or not done on the day, due to difficulties in contacting the healthcare professionals while they were present at patients’ homes.
Solution
Infinity is a task management platform that allows the team to coordinate care and manage their workload by creating, assigning, and tracking tasks in real-time. They have instant visibility of who is doing what task for which patient and the status of the task. No tasks are ever missed, improving clinical safety for patients. Staff can securely log in on any modern device and see critical patient information when they need it.
They no longer use handwritten notes or printed lists, and handover meetings are reduced. Managers can keep track of patients’ progress and treatment and support the clinical team more easily throughout the day. Phone calls are drastically reduced as tasks are added and allocated as required.
Clinicians can view previous and future tasks so they can have more informed conversations with patients about their treatment. Virtual ward rounds are easily performed by consultants with up to date information available. The data collected at a granular level gives the trust valuable insights into what tasks are done at what time of day and by which healthcare professional, facilitating informed resource management.
Three years of Infinity
Infinity has enabled the team to manage their caseload more efficiently and provide care for more patients.
In January 2020, there was an average of seven patients per staff member, while in January 2023 this rose to 10 patients per staff member. This 43% increase in patients, together with a 62% increase in tasks per staff member, means that the capacity increase we predicted at the start of the project has been realised.
Overall, in 2020 the team saw 2689 patients and conducted 18,658 tasks and in 2022 that rose to 3732 patients and 30,827 tasks. Staff numbers have increased by eight.
Providing patients with treatment at home reduces the length of stay in hospital, prevents readmission, reduces hospital-acquired infections, and helps patients to recover quickly. It also allows beds to be available for patients who need them the most, reducing waiting times and the risks associated with delayed admissions.
STARRS staff provide care for patients across all specialities that on average would have stayed an extra 5.6 days in hospital. In 2022, additional capacity allowed the team to care for 3732 patients in their own homes, saving the hospital 20,899 in additional bed days.
“Infinity has helped us to manage our caseload safely and efficiently and support more patients to recover in their own home. This in turn helps to free up beds for patients who need to receive treatment in hospital. It also helps us to help staff so they can concentrate on their clinical role and protect their own health and wellbeing.”
— Devaneson Robert
Service Manager - STARRS, London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust
Infinity also helped the STARRS team to provide treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic and support some outpatient departments. The team did blood tests and administered fragmin injections to patients at home who would normally need to attend anticoagulation clinics and physiotherapists treated patients at home avoiding them having to travel to hospital.
During COVID, we never closed our doors, and we were even able to support patients from other departments within LNWH. Infinity’s digital clinical task management really helped us to manage our tasks, prioritise our workload, and open capacity within the team. We have no backlogs.
— Devaneson Robert
Service Manager - STARRS, London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust
Overall, Infinity has provided the team with an efficient and safer coordination of care, improved staff experience, and given staff time to see more patients.
“Infinity works well for our team. You can download the app on your phone, and you have all your tasks and patient information in front of you. We can save time and prioritise in providing safe and effective care for patients. We couldn’t have done this before.”
— Ambika Gurung
Senior Nurse STARRS (Early Supported Discharge), Northwick Park Hospital