Healthcare
Transforming Outpatients – Optimising clinic preparation
Transforming Outpatients – Optimising clinic preparation
This major Acute Hospital Trust provides a range of specialist and general hospital services across 6 hospital sites with over 14,000 employees.
The Trust has been challenged to save £196.3m over a 5-year period. As part of the transformation programme designed to achieve this target, sits the Transforming Outpatients Project (TOP) which aims to improve every aspect of the Trust’s outpatient service.
Results
- Reduced costs, generating recurrent cash releasing savings in excess of £500,000.
- New centralised service, functions with 40% reduction in staffing.
- Ebedded continuous improvement ethos within day to day operations of team.
- Enhanced customer service, underpinned by a service level agreement.
Approach
- Undertook an activity analysis exercise with 450+ administrative staff across all specialities whom spend a proportion of time on outpatient duties.
- Determined that approx. 24% of time locating health records.
- Presented a potentially greater opportunity than first envisaged, activity technically 100% Non Value Added.
- From the above calculated a theoretical resource profile (available capacity) for a new centralised team retrieval team.
- Working with the various speciality teams, using process mapping tools to understand and capture the different methods in use for retrieving health records (current state), to then develop a new standardised improved retrieval process (future state)
- Assessed the performance variation across specialties to determine the scope for efficiencies and identify tangible savings opportunities in excess of target
Solution
- Completed workforce modelling exercise to map capacity against demand and determine actual resource levels.
- Design of new management & supervisory structure to support new delivery model.
- Process redesign through a series of process mapping workshops with front line staff, team members mapped existing ways of working, evaluating steps considered not to add value and could be reduced or completely removed and brainstorming ways to develop an improved system. The outcome of which resulted in improved processes with a lot less duplication and reliance on paper based methods.
- Development of new Missing records management system to support scheduling and prioritisation of work.
- Work scheduling and Line Balancing across 4 cells within the new centralised team.
- Standardisation of operating procedures to support new ways of working across organisation.
- Developed of a suite of performance indicators to baseline and manage performance.
- Delivered the project over an intense 9 week schedule from ‘Design to Implementation’.
- Underpinned by master-schedule and rigorous project management approach.
- Carried out Pilot with single speciality team to trial new process and identify any potential issues before rolling out across Trust.
- Partnership approach working with Trust work stream lead.
- Introduction and application of lean principles for whole team.
