LESSONS FROM THE LABS

Added: (Fri May 07 2010)

Pressbox (Press Release) - The success of new patient management programme points the way for other departments.

For the last 6 months, the Cath Lab Teams at Guy’s St Thomas’ Hospital Trust (GSTT) have been using Labyrinth. This software programme was designed to track the patient pathway from admission on the ward and then through all the various tests, stages, substages and procedures. It’s a complicated business; GSTT has 5 Cath labs receiving patients from 5 cardiac wards located throughout the hospital complex.
Labyrinth uses a dashboard screen where patients are shown in rows and procedures are shown in columns. As patients move through the various stages, staff record their progress with a click. This updates the information shown on screen and simultaneously captures data for audit purposes. Result: when a staff member records that a given procedure is complete, the information is sent immediately to everyone who needs to know; they don’t have to go and tell them. And all the information staff members need is on the screen in front of them; they don’t have to go and ask. As the GSTT Lab Co-ordinator reports: “This saves a lot of time. Whoever is co-ordinating used to spend all day outside the labs, running around between the labs and wards. Now they work inside the labs.” This saved time can be put to good use; the Lab Co-ordinators can now do clinical work. Labyrinth also reduces stress. As the Deputy Manager, Cardiac Labs says: “The co-ordinator role used to be really stressful, now they can sit down, look at the screen and decide the best course of action."
The system was well within the unit’s budget and has proved simple to learn and to use. Staff need, on average only 15 minutes training and each day’s list I loaded, automatically, from Tomcat the night before.


Recording the benefits.

A reporting function was built into Labyrinth from the start. This produces data for audit purposes and also analyses utilisation of the labs, pinpointing the causes of cancellations or delays. Armed with this information, the team can make improvements processes and test how well those improvements worked in practise. As noted above, all the data is recorded in real time as staff go about their normal work, so there is no time spent inputting data. This saves the Head of Radiology 3 days per month.
The raw data produced by Labyrinth can be analysed to produce information on any aspect of the unit’s operation, like the causes of cancellations and delays. This information can then be broken down further into any combination of appointments, procedures, labs, wards and period of time. “The information is there when you need it,” says the Cardiac Radiology Manager. “Consequently, more can be done with it.” This new information has already led to a number of improvements.


Adapting Labyrinth for other departments.

This first version of Labyrinth was developed for Cath labs – but the system can be easily adapted to any other medical department where complex logistics cause problems of communication and co-ordination. Dashboard buttons can be added or removed and the names of processes can be changed – but the underlying software has now proved its effectiveness in the day to day running of a busy hospital department. “It’s well worth it,” says the Deputy Nursing Manager. ”I don’t want to go back to paper co-ordination; it’s a much more efficient way of working.”


For further information, go to www.gallerypartnership.co.uk/labyrinth and join a 30 minute webinar on (details to follow), where you can see Labyrinth in action.

The Gallery Partnership Ltd has been providing reliable software solutions and professional IT support services to businesses and charities across the UK for over 13 years.

tel - 020 709602800
labyrinth@gallerypartnership.co.uk
www.gallerypartnership.co.uk/labyrinth