Customer stories
Improving care outcomes for emergency departments
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Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust now enjoys a clinically rich emergency department case management system that is fully integrated with other clinical systems including their Patient Administration System (PAS), Order Communications and eDischarge solutions.
Using Optum's (formerly EMIS) Symphony®, Frimley Health’s Frimley Park Emergency Department have reduced their reliance on paper, whilst improving their ability to ensure greater continuity of care and manage patient care more efficiently.
Kevin Percival, Symphony system manager at Frimley Park Hospital, said: “When staff saw that patient information could be captured electronically and displayed with ease, they understood how the patient and clinicians would benefit.”
Integrated care
97% of Discharge Letters are delivered to GPs electronically within 24 hours.
The trust has integrated their Symphony system with their Electronic Patient Record and other clinical systems, such as Order Communication and Discharge. Using Symphony, they are now able to deliver 97% of discharge letters to GPs electronically to eligible practices within 24 hours, delivering more timely reporting and reducing paper consumption. The trust is expanding its use of Symphony to additional wards - including their Medical and Surgical Assessment units. Frimley Health is also working with community care providers to track and support frequent attendees who may require mental health care.
Real-time reporting
In addition to Symphony’s real-time patient tracking interface, the system’s eAudit solution enables managers to run analytical reports using live data, to help drive additional improvements in care outcomes.
More accurate clinical coding has increased revenue by £500,000
Symphony also enables accurate and timely CDS (Commissioning Data Sets) collection (using EMIS' Keystone solution) which has enabled the trust to report clinical codes more accurately, and increase their revenue by £500,000 per year.
Improving clinical governance
Symphony has also supported the clinical governance agenda required by Frimley, providing:
- a better solution for recording and monitoring child protection issues
- automated reporting to track key quality indicators
- integrated clinical guidelines and care delivery frameworks
- warnings and alerts to improve staff and patient safety.
Looking forward
Frimley Health plans to integrate their emergency department with a new trust-wide EMIS ePrescribing system. Incorporation of patients’ NHS numbers will also improve patient record matching to ensure greater continuity of care across primary and secondary care settings.