Data processing at Kingston Hospital Trust has been made easier thanks to the implementation of a 6PM Care Solutions project.
This means that the members of staff at Kingston are now able to load data faster and without them needing to have any programming skills. Besides, at any time, the Trust can also add new data feeds and create its own exports using the data of its choice.
The 6PM Care Solutions project is bridging the gap that is going to be created once BT withdraws its IM200 feeds to be replaced by the Power Insight Enterprise Data Warehouse (PIEDW) delivered by Cerner.
The 6PM project aims to continue the ‘business as usual’ operations of the information team at Kingston Hospital Trust by providing the additional information needed by the Trust for reporting and submitting purposes.
The project was initiated in April 2012. The first two months involved the shaping of the project. Increment 2 of the project started in July. Recently it went through the cycle test by the client to confirm that the team has delivered what was requested from it.
In the meantime 6PM was given the go-ahead to start increment 3 of the project that will see the PIEDW solution integrating with Care Solutions v4. It will also introduce a couple of new features related to data quality management.
Asked about the benefits of the project, Elton Barry, who is the Project Manager, said that since the data is being made available earlier at Kingston Hospital Trust it is reducing the load of the day to day activities allowing more time for analysing issues and the pattern of data. Although the system is purely administrative its benefits do trickle down to the patients as the overall care will improve through a better management of the care pathway. Elton Barry said
that the CareSolutions system also helps to monitor the waiting times and improve the performance in the emergency areas of the hospital and in the whole hospital in general.
Kingston Hospital NHS Trust is a district general hospital based approximately 12 miles from central London. The hospital supports around 320,000 people in the surrounding area including the boroughs of Kingston, Richmond, parts of Wandsworth and Elmbridge. The hospital has approximately 520 beds and directly employs around 2,750 staff with another 300 staff employed by contractors but working on behalf of the Trust.
Kingston Hospital NHS Trust provides a full range of diagnostic and treatment services and has a reputation for innovative developments in healthcare, particularly in ‘patient-focused’ care, day surgery and maternity services.