Countdown to the 18 week wait

Daloni Carlisle reports.

By December 2008 all non-urgent NHS patients should start their hospital treatment within 18 weeks of their GP referring them to hospital. It’s a major challenge for the NHS – with IT at the heart of providing the solutions.

The 18 week RTT target was announced in the 2004 NHS Improvement Plan. It was – is – revolutionary in that it addresses the whole pathway from referral by a GP to the start of treatment in an acute setting.

It shines a light on the so-called hidden waits – the diagnostic and follow-up outpatient stages that have historically taken weeks or months to complete and had never been measured systematically.

Ardentia

Ardentia is the leading supplier of healthcare business information applications. In particular, its ‘Pathway Manager’ makes it the foremost supplier of solutions for monitoring eighteen-week waits, while ‘Patient Level Costing’ has made it a leader in the field of calculating costs of activity at patient level and supporting service-line management.

Ardentia is unique in providing software to every level of the health service: PCTs, Acute Trusts, Mental Health and Community Trusts, SHA’s and national projects. For the latter, it is in particular the supplier of the user interface for data analysis applications within the Secondary Uses Service. In all its work, Ardentia is driven by the need to meet the information needs of both clincians and managers, and specifically financial managers.

E-mail: sales@ardentia.co.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 870 267 0008
Web: www.ardentia.co.uk/solutions-pathway-manager.php

LSC Group

LSC Group has many years experience of providing innovative consulting services and solutions that contribute to service transformation and focus on reducing waste, cost and optimising processes.

Our services include:

• Lean consulting - improving operational efficiency and reducing waste
• Supply chain consulting - optimising the NHS supply chain
• Data analysis and modelling consultancy - cost and operational effectiveness modelling and forecasting for improved resource utilisation
• Business Process Management (BPM) - solutions to streamline and optimise business processes
• Electronic Document & Records Management (EDRM) – improving information flow and governance

E-mail: healthcare@lsc.co.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 1543 446800 (Brian Ambler, Executive Manager)
Web: www.lsc.co.uk

Seamless management and data capture for RTT Monitoring

Stalis offer unique RTT Pathway Management as part of their CareXML® Business Activity Management Suite of Real-Time Healthcare Reporting Solutions that is not just limited to 18 week monitoring. Trusts with older legacy PAS systems that are unable to capture Start of Treatment can take advantage of a fully integrated solution that offers (almost) seamless data capture through screens designed to look and feel like your existing ones. CareXML® combines a well proven Data Warehouse and Data Repository based environment with the most advanced Reporting tools available in the NHS Today. Talk to Stalis –Trusted NHS Information Management expertise for over 20 years.

E-mail: John.w@stalis.com
Web: www.stalis.com

Document creation solutions that help beat DoH timescales

SRC has helped over 100 Trusts achieve cost savings and productivity improvements through the deployment of Digital Dictation and Speech Recognition solutions. Our experience and knowledge has established us as the UK's No. 1 provider of document creation technologies.

SRC is the exclusive European WinScribe Platinum Partner and holder of several Dragon Partner Awards, recognising the high quality of our solutions. We combine these best-of-breed technologies, with award-winning services, to deliver solutions that are proven to dramatically save time and money. Our solutions improve team working and help NHS Trusts meet the DoH 18 week delivery programme.

Most recently SRC has delivered Digital Dictation solutions to Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, The Dudley Group of Hospitals NHS Trust, Dartford & Gravesham NHS Trust, Royal West Sussex NHS Trust and, Brighton & Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust.

E-mail: carls@src.co.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7471 0100 (Carl Sargent)
Web: www.src.co.uk/industries/Healthcare/digital_dictation_benefits.html

DICT8 – UK-based Medical Transcription reduces typing times

DICT8 provides medical transcription services to a large number of Trusts around the country.

This can significantly reduce the time taken to type up clinical letters, notes and reports from days or weeks to just hours: this will have a significant impact on the achievement of the 18-week wait.

All transcription work is done by highly experienced UK based medical transcribers, with an average of 11-years NHS experience.

The DICT8 solution has minimal impact on existing systems and working practices: users dictate their letters in the usual fashion and send them to us using our web browser interface (no software installation is required on Trust computers). We then return transcribed letters through the web in a couple of hours.

Email: info@dict8.com
Tel: +44 (0) 800 121 8105 (James Fellowes)
Web: www.dict8.com

ZuluZoft Ltd. – Therapy Manager

Therapy Manager is an integrated IT solution for Therapy Services, providing business benefits such as;

• 18 week challenge - real time waiting list and case load management
• The management of your commissioning contracts
• Financial savings - Improvements in productivity
• Improved Patient Experience and Journey

“It is the most efficient electronic system I have used. Therapy Manager it is quite simply the easiest to understand has great support and delivers on all the key areas needed” - Stuart Harmes, Head of Podiatry and Orthotics (DCSS IM&T lead)

Email: info@zuluzoft.com
Tel: +44 (0) 1244 312 362 (Doug Hopkins / Jonas Mandahl Pedersen)
Web: www.zuluzoft.com/18weektarget.htm