How we can get patient flow right: A junior doctor’s perspective

By Dr Ed Hutchison , Junior Doctor and Clinical Solutions Specialist, Altera Digital Health.

In healthcare, where every second counts,, the importance of efficient patient flow cannot be overstated. Effective patient flow within an acute hospital is essential for delivering timely, efficient, and high-quality care to patients while maximising the use of hospital resources.

?Junior Doctor and Clinical Solutions Specialist, Ed Hutchison, brings us an insightful perspective on this critical issue.

From the discharge point of view, in a practical sense, the challenge is that we’re dealing with people from across different geographical groups. You could be looking to discharge three people, but if they are all from different ICS regions, there are different forms to fill out and different people to contact. This often causes delays because someone from a social care organisation in a particular region might come back days after you contacted them and say the patient is not in their organisation’s region, so they can’t take them.

Having a digital system in place that increases visibility, prevents duplication of information and enables that swift sharing of information is key.

With regards to improving efficiencies within hospital, poor patient flow not only risks harm to the patient, but it also takes up a lot of staff time. Ultimately, from an efficiency point of view, staff time is money. Anything that enables the process to run more smoothly helps us spend more time with our patients rather than tackling logistical problems.

From a doctor’s perspective, it’s ultimately about getting patients to the right area to optimise their care. That could mean getting them to a particular specialist ward or getting them discharged home. Digital tools can increase our visibility of those pathways and speed up the process, too. Rather than duplication of forms or two people making the same phone call, the information is set out in one place that everyone has oversight of. It’s clearly labelled if a patient needs to be moved to a particular ward, we can see the number of beds available in that ward, and we can start to plan that patient’s care ahead of time.

Similarly, within the hospital, digital tools can help us save time in getting patients to scans or treatments—we can send a digital request for transportation, for example, rather than needing a paper form to book that transportation in.

All of this is not only going to make clinicians' lives easier, but it will also improve patients’ experiences and optimise their outcomes.

In my current organisation, we’ve had a lot of problems over the past few years with patients getting stuck in the emergency department. You see the impact that delays can have on patients when they need to have a specialist review, and in terms of patient or relative frustration. It’s distressing being in the wrong place and that affects the patient, their family and staff, too. A lot of time and energy goes into thinking about ways to optimise things like treatments and scans, but arguably, getting a patient to the right place in a timely manner is just as important. Having processes in place that recognise the importance of that is key.

Other than that, I think it’s about keeping it simple—having a clear, concise solution that helps that process move smoothly. You don’t need to add unnecessary bits that complicate it, you just want to have that visibility and get people to where they need to go.

Also, having the same system across the hospital and the wider trust is so important. Inter-hospital transfers are common, and you can end up with the same problem in which you can’t see what’s going on in another hospital. That leads to more phone calls and more delays.

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This article is an extract from a recent thought leadership article in HTN ‘Altera on patient flow, supporting hospital efficiencies and planning demand and capacity’ – Read more here.

To learn more about Altera Patient Flow, please click here.