PATIENT RECORDS
T Clinical IT – luxury or necessity?
Proving the case for clinical IT solutions in a challenging financial environment is increasingly important. Beki Ruban describes how a study carried out by Professor M. Caldeira and a team of researchers at the Technical University of Lisbon is helping to ‘prove’ the benefits of the ALERT clinical solution as a ‘frontline service.’
he impact of
austerity measures in healthcare present
organisations with difficult choices. The value proposition for investment in clinical IT solutions versus frontline services is increasingly difficult but increasingly essential.
Whilst the theories which support the benefits proposition go some way to enabling the ‘business case’ decision, increasingly the need for ‘proven’ benefits is essential in supporting investment decisions Conscious of this need ALERT Life Sciences Computing in partnership with the Technical University of Lisbon undertook a study of the benefits of implementing a clinical paperless software solution in an acute hospital in Portugal.
The Hospital of Espírito Santo is located in Évora, a town in the south of Portugal, and serves a population of around 175,000 inhabitants. It provides more than 150.000 medical appointments per year and has an average of 200 emergency episodes a day.
In 2008 and 2009, the hospital implemented a clinical paperless software solution developed by ALERT Life Sciences Computing across all departments of the hospital and integrated with their ERP and radiology and laboratory systems. The solution also provides an inbuilt data warehouse solution to capture and support the use of information for clinical, operational and strategic purposes
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The research project was conducted to evaluate the organisational benefits achieved from the implementation of ALERT® at the hospital.
In order to understand the business benefits from the implementation of the new paperless software solution, data was collected through surveys, direct observation and time measurement and in-depth interviews with major stakeholders.
The research was conducted using Ward and Daniel’s (2006) approach to benefits management. The research approach used included the use of a process model for benefits management; a classification of the benefits according to their nature and the development of a benefit dependency network to enable the investment objectives and their resulting benefits to be linked, in a structured way, to the organisational and information technology changes required to achieve those benefits.
The research concluded that the implementation of the solution was likely to bring significant financial, operational and clinical benefits
Financial benefits were accrued by means of a reduction in the number of diagnostic tests, reduction in administration costs and archiving costs; and a reduction in the time needed to perform clinical processes Financial benefits included: - An estimated £179,000 saving in administrative costs per annum
- An estimated £7,000 saving on paper production costs per annum
- An estimated £6,300 saving on film production costs per annum
- An estimated £15,000 saving on laboratory staff costs per annum
- An estimated £21,000 saving in medical records costs per annum
Total financial benefits were estimated at more than £2.8 million per year.
As well as financial benefits the implementation also realised other business benefits including improvements to customer services; improvements in the management and security of clinical information; improved information for patients and relatives and improvements to the quality and availability of information for clinical decision making.
Clinical and operational benefits included: - A 70% reduction in triage times in the emergency department
- A 90% reduction in the time between the prescription of medicines and medicine administration
- Over 50% reduction in waiting times for imaging examination results
- 33% increase in out patient activity attributable to the ALERT solution implementation
FOR MORE INFORMATION E:
beki.ruban@
alert-online.com W:
http://alert-online.com
Sep/Oct 10
- A 75% decrease in the number of re-triaged patients in the emergency department Since almost all processes are computer-based and data is recorded in a digital and coded format, the solution was shown to provide very rich and useful clinical, operational and management information for users and the management team of the hospital.
In all the study of benefits concluded that implementation of the solution had enabled better management control over organizational processes both operational and clinical and increased organisational and individual accountability and responsibility.
The need for benefits information should not be underestimated. In the financially challenged world of healthcare, the ability to take risks and invest in non – proven technologies will be an uncommon luxury. Healthcare providers and solution suppliers must now be able to ‘talk the talk’ and show that investing in clinical IT is an investment in frontline services and an essential investment for the future
Beki Ruban is head of UK business development for ALERT Life Sciences Computing
References:
Ward, John and Daniel, Elisabeth. (2006). Benefits Management – Delivering Value from IS & IT investments, Wiley
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