LEAN
through understanding what is involved in the test and what it is looking for. This is a great example of how ICT enabled front line pathology staff are helping patients, through providing comprehensive information to them.”
Aside from helping patients, the site is also used regularly by clinical staff, who are keen to keep up-to-date with the very latest information.
“Between 20-30 per cent of hits to the site are from clinicians who find the site to be a useful resource to refresh their knowledge of these tests.”
Although this application of ICT in pathology is already showing many benefits, there is a growing demand for efficiencies to be made to the system and as much waste as possible to be removed from pathology in general. This could prove tricky given the number of efficiency drives which pathology services have been through in the past.
Dr Jones outlines the areas
where the use of ICT is again helping to find those efficiencies.
“One project which is very important is work going on to provide a National Laboratory Medicine Catalogue, which will provide a set of standards for pathology testing in a way which has never been done before. This catalogue will work in much the same way as the other sites mentioned earlier, except in a slightly more sophisticated way.
“The project is ongoing but it is now beginning to list all of the tests which are available under the NHS, along with links out to evidence and why those tests should or should not be available. At the moment the profession is going through that list to find tests which need to be dropped.
“This can often be because one test is very similar to another test and they need to be rationalised. Obviously, the information available for each test varies as this is a work in progress, but there is a huge amount of work going on to
develop the catalogue, which might even one day link off to Map of Medicine. This is a great example of the kind of digital and professional development that has flowed out of the pathology IT strategy papers.”
Although this site is very similar to the one created by Dr Jones and his colleagues at various trusts around the country, once it is finished it will be the definitive list of pathology tests.
very few
“This will mean that if a test is not on this list, it will not be made available on the NHS.”
Dr Jones believes this will help to reduce waste by cutting back on the amount of tests which are carried out needlessly, either because they have already been done or are simply not suitable.
“There are a lot of tests being carried out which have a very questionable value. We all have lists of the tests which we can carry out but this would enable us to either use tests more effectively or not to use a test at all, perhaps because it is out of date.
“We also need a mechanism to deal with new tests which come in to us. One thing which happens quite often is that a paper will be published in a journal and then the following morning we will inundated for requests for that test.
“Of course, just because something gets published doesn’t mean that it is actually proven and the test could be completely unsuitable, so to have a resource which would allow us to inform people on a big scale would be very useful. In the same way, if a test is really good, then this catalogue could allow us to share that information more easily.”
people inside or outside the NHS realise that nearly 100% of test results for GPs have been sent electronically since 2004
Sep/Oct 10
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