Data quality and auditing
At the Royal Oldham Hospital in the UK, multiple inpatient referral processes were used by different clinical specialties. These often required administrative support to manage incoming referrals. Additionally, there was no adequate means to manage referrals electronically to ensure that referrals were dealt with in a timely manner and included standardised clinical information.
The challenge: clinical information
Due to the lack of referral standardisation, the level of detail and clinical information documented in referrals was highly variable. Benchmarking also showed that telephone discussions between the referee and referrer were often not documented in the patient’s clinical notes.
The solution: electronic referral management tool
In consultation with a team of clinical champions, including senior clinical leaders, consultants, clinical fellows, registrars and nurses, Bleepa was developed as a referral management tool which would standardise not only how referrals were made but also the clinical information needed to effectively process them.
The goal is to capture the necessary but sufficient details that would be applicable across a range of clinical specialties. However, at the same time not making the referral process overly burdensome and time consuming. With Bleepa, it is possible to tailor question content for individual specialties.
The result is a Bleepa referral management process that aligns with clinical best practice, supports standardisation along the patient pathway, and is auditable, fully open and transparent. All to improve clinical communication.
The referral form in Bleepa allowed us to capture really important clinical information about the patient which, not only is it important to allow us to plan treatment, it also gave the clinicians more information, in one place, at one time, in order to aid them to triage patients’ requirements.”
Janine Beattie, EPR Clinical Configuration Lead
Conclusion: a fully auditable system
Bleepa is a fully auditable system. Therefore, every referral and outcome is available to review during and following the patient episode.
The standardisation of the Bleepa referral form includes additional clinical information, such as:
- Co-morbidities
- Frailty score
- NEWS score
- Access to all PACS imaging
- Reason for referral/clinical question
- Contact details for the referrer
