Have patients lost overview due to fragmentation in care?
This is our solutionThe Queen Victoria Hospital (QVH), located in East Grinstead, UK, has a longstanding reputation for pioneering burn treatments and reconstructive surgery. During the 1940s, it was home to the self-styled ‘Guinea Pig Club’ – severely injured RAF aircrew who underwent experimental, lifesaving treatment and rehabilitation, under the care of renowned plastic surgeon, Sir Archibald McIndoe.
The QVH remains a regional centre of excellence for similar kinds of treatment today, and operates as a standalone NHS Trust – with medical professionals also operating clinics in a number of healthcare settings across the region.
After nearly a decade of successful collaboration with Enovation on a variety of initiatives, in 2015 the QVH management team embarked on a programme of digital transformation, with the principal aim of streamlining and enhancing communications and the flow of information across the Trust’s numerous IT systems.
Mary Gwynn, Head of Business Intelligence and Clinical Systems, Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
As new digital-first monitoring solutions were brought in – such as e-Observation, PatientTrack, and Patient Administration Systems – it was becoming easier for staff to record healthcare data and connect it with some 700,000 of the Trust’s patient admissions records in real-time.
But despite the QVH’s solid commitment to innovation and best practice, ensuring all of these various data points were aligned and consistent with national patient records was no mean feat.
Case notes and retention rules apply to patient data. In addition, a lot of the QVH’s patient records are outdated or inconsistent with the NHS’ Summary Care Record system; which is why the QVH team runs traces against a national database to ensure anyone known to the Trust as a former patient has a correct data profile.
Progress on digital transformation had begun in earnest, when in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit: causing further disruption. And with a single employee responsible for maintaining a heavy flow of information – on a part-time basis – it became clear that a more robust, centralised software solution would be instrumental in the QVH’s drive towards innovation.
We have all kinds of internal processes, so we need to ensure that our data is as up to date as possible. With newer services, like Cloverleaf, a lot of that work becomes automated and integrated with other systems.
QVH had known for a while that a new Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system was an essential piece of the digital puzzle – especially with automation becoming a key part of data management. However, planning and procurement was taking time.
Enovation’s Cloverleaf Integration Suite software played an instrumental role in helping QVH meet its objectives. Acting as a communication server, Cloverleaf is able to unite medical data across the various systems in place – across different message formats and communication protocols.
For example, digitised medical photography can be easily accessed by staff, thanks to a query retrieval interface powered by Cloverleaf. This allows hospital staff to locate the relevant images by searching using patient-unique identifier data on the Patient Access System. This setup also minimises data access, as only the relevant information is made available between systems, mitigating risks associated with data governance and patient confidentiality.
Electronic document management is another key area in which QVH has worked closely with Enovation; ensuring that not only is the right documentation saved against the correct patient records, but when presented to clinicians via other systems the information shown is articulated and structured in a way that’s relevant to them.
QVH has also implemented its first patient-facing portal – called Patients Know Best – in which those admitted can better manage their experience, update their details, access appointment letters, and (soon) test results. Prior to launch, the service was rigorously tested by the QVH team in close collaboration with Enovation to ensure that it displayed correctly to patients.
In busy hospitals, staff often have multiple responsibilities and are pulled in many different directions. That’s why being able to both record medical information and gain insight on-demand is so vital – it leads to better results in healthcare outcomes and smoother running of day-to-day operations.
As the vast majority of the QVH’s intake is day patients requiring specialist treatment, it remains a small hospital. But the amount of effort that goes into creating the infrastructure needed to run an efficient operation remains similar to a larger one. However, with Enovation as the QVH’s key technology partner – and with Cloverleaf in place – the vast amount of sensitive, critical, patient information is made seamlessly available across the numerous local, regional, and national IT systems in a safe, secure, and accessible way.
As the QVH looks towards making its next major IT investment – a new EPR solution – the team is confident that, with Enovation’s support, they can continue to provide their staff with a robust IT system that’s simple and intuitive to use, but powerful enough to integrate, organise, and retrieve often complex and sensitive patient information.
In that respect, Cloverleaf is more than just a communications server. While it significantly reduces the risk of human error and the use of incorrect or incomplete information; it also provides significant time savings, increased accuracy, and ensures the right data compliance requirements are being met.
Most of the specialist care that the QVH provides is to severely injured patients facing an uncertain future. Data should be a minimal concern. And it can be, with the right technology stack – backed by a passionate, innovation-driven team able to assist when they’re needed most.
Innovation reduces risk. The Cloverleaf system continues to deliver on its promises. But it’s the human relationships that we have with the Enovation team that makes all the difference. Being able to pick up the phone and troubleshoot ideas and navigate problems can’t be underestimated. We know we’ll get the support we need and a fast response.
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