What is patient flow management
Patient flow management is a crucial component in the delivery of quality, efficient care within hospitals. It enables every hospital department to improve patient journeys, which is not only important for the patient experience, but also for clinical safety, and to help reduce excess pressure on staff.
During busy periods in particular, patient journeys must be managed efficiently, which is where effective Patient Flow Management solutions are invaluable.
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Written by Katherine Tattershall
Why is patient flow so important?
Inefficient patient journey management can lead to serious patient flow issues. Emergency department waiting times can increase and wards can become overcrowded. This may lead to staff and services becoming overstretched, which is detrimental to both employees and patients.
With many healthcare providers relying on a combination of outdated methods such as paper documents, excel files and physical whiteboards to handle data, patient risk is increased through potential information loss, transcribing errors and inaccessible EPR systems.
The NHS has targets to reach, such as admitting 95% of patients attending A&E and discharging or transferring patients within four hours. However, due to poor patient flow mapping, these targets can be missed.
Patient flow management ensures an optimum flow of people through the hospital, to improve efficiencies and create a positive impact for every individual receiving health care and for the people who deliver it.
Managing and improving patient flow
Transferring your patient flow management systems to a real-time digital environment, helps you to deliver the right care, to the right patient, at the right time. Healthcare professionals can admit, transfer and discharge patients in real time, and everyone involved in patient’s care can access the same critical information.
Touchscreen digital whiteboards house the flow of patient information. Patient flow is monitored closely, and those in need of medical care can be admitted and transferred by moving their virtual notes through the patient journey.
Digital whiteboards enable healthcare professionals to view an array of information of patient information., such as the patient’s status, any known issues, consultant information and an estimated discharge date. Ward-based staff can also view this information on mobile devices, which frees them from their desks. They can monitor patients more closely and add notes straight away, which improves patient flow on hospital wards.
You can improve patient flow in the emergency department by providing quicker and more precise information, with no duplicates and better access, meaning a reduced length of stay and better patient journey.
You can also reduce staff meeting times between shifts and save up to 364 hours a year, or 15 full days per person, which also frees up your team up to do what they do best – provide excellent clinical care.
Find out more about our patient flow software
Patient flow best practices to follow
A real-time view of bed occupancy helps to improve the quality of patient care, reduce risk, and save time. Patient flow management software interfaces with existing patient administration systems and departmental solutions to provide a seamless and intuitive user experience.
- Go paperless: Manage your system on digital whiteboards and mobile devices to see patient status at a glance including their interventions. Help to drive your hospital’s paper free digital strategy.
- Deliver safer patient journeys: Foresee bed conditions with up-to-date information with all team members better informed. Clinical indicators within Flow ensures that care needs are not overlooked. Dissemination of data in real-time allows teams to plan more effectively, delivering a safer and more efficient experience for patients.
- Achieve greater efficiencies: Patient flow management drives improvements in communication and efficiency across your hospital and maximises bed capacity. It also helps to create a collaborative environment for teams to work together and feel empowered to deliver safe and effective patient care.
Patient flow process: Nine steps to improving patient flow in UK hospitals
- Have a clear vision – create the case for change and ensure alignment across the senior leadership team.
- Define your targets – set targets based on evidence within your organisation that is benchmarked amongst your peers.
- Leadership teams aligned to targets – key directors must be onboard to align clinical and administrative leadership teams.
- Continuous engagement across the trust – staff across the organisation must understand the vision and case for change
- Plan within areas of specialty – Review the length of stays and associated metrics across the Trust to quantify the opportunity for improvement.
- Identify interventions that will impact admissions and the length of stay.
- A robust operational plan to inform your capacity and bed management.
- Simple dashboards and reporting of top-level metrics provide information in real time, to drive operational decision-making and create a control centre to support patient flow.
- Create a system that can fluctuate with seasonal demands to support safer staffing with a continual focus on maximising flow while improving cost control.
(Ref article here)
How software can improve patient flow
Our patient flow management software already helps many hospitals improve bed management with simple digital solutions that deliver better care, and positively change people’s lives.
The Ward Whiteboard
The Ward Whiteboard gives an at-a-glance operational summary including capacity, occupancy, expected discharges, closed beds, planned admissions and actual TCIs.
Patient cards display current clinical status, EDD, discharge planning, problems, and interventions.
Absent patients and off-ward locations are instantly visible.
New patients are automatically flagged for admission assessment and NEWS and other data from external systems is imported and displayed.
Bed Managers Screen
Incoming Bed Requests from all sources provides the Bed Manager with information to plan and assign patients to inpatient beds using the real time bed state on the digital screen.
Patient Lists to track patients
Intelligent listing filters enable pre-configured and user-contextualised lists to be instantly available. Personal list criteria may be created, saved, and shared with colleagues.
Multiple filters are available including all the whiteboard indicators and other data items. Access to the patient profile allows remote updates to the Ward Whiteboard indicators and to create digital notes and tasks for colleagues to access anywhere.
Specialised list functions include Infection Control, Handover and Hospital at Night with contextualised summary data within the list.
Hospital at a glance
A powerful feature is configured locally to present the management information needed for real-time operational management at organisation, department, and ward level.
Bed demand, occupancy, and capacity are confirmed, as are potential discharges and current performance indicators.
Mobile
Bed management software is designed to be viewed and used on mobile devices, meaning clinicians aren’t restricted to their desk.
They can access patient profiles on their mobile device, update the Digital Whiteboard and create notes and tasks for colleagues remotely with management information dashboards are updated in real-time.
Find out more about our patient flow software
