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Standardising elective care performance and reducing variation within an ICS

In pursuit of elective care recovery across the country, the formation of Integrated Care Systems (ICS) not only provides the opportunity to work collaboratively to tackle the backlog but also to level the playing field and reduce what’s known as the ‘postcode lottery’ when it comes to the delivery of care.

Within an individual ICS, the proactive optimisation of elective care pathways will undoubtedly contribute to meeting the targets set out in the elective care recovery plan by March 2025. But the real opportunity perhaps lies in working across ICS boundaries; to pool resources from both a capacity and capability point of view and maximise elective activity on a wider scale.

This was echoed at a recent round table event held by The King’s Fund, where participants explored the relationships that would be critical to successfully managing the elective care backlog including intra- and inter-organisational collaboration, local community and patient engagement, co-ordination between primary and secondary care and the role of data in the elective care pathway.

This event highlighted the opportunities to:

• – Share resources and innovation to support neighbouring systems, particularly where waiting times are longer in some areas than others.
• – Ensure the NHS workforce across the system is engaged with the elective care journey and empowered to create positive change that will support the road to recovery.
• – Consider the role of data in patient stratification with the potential to bring in markers such as levels of deprivation or social value that may contribute to improved outcomes further down the line.

 

Optimising elective care pathways

Working with NHS regions, systems and trusts across the country, Four Eyes Insight is supporting the reduction of the elective care backlog by aligning capacity with demand; using data in conjunction with our technology and expertise to identify and implement sustainable productivity gains whilst helping trusts get back to basics done well.

Within an ICS, our programme of works can be tailored to involve one or multiple trusts; bringing them together through the uniform management of waiting lists, distribution of capacity and improved patient experience from referral to discharge.

Our experienced productivity consultants work as an extension of NHS teams to deliver real value and sustainable change, implementing data-driven decision making into the continuous improvement process.

Our methodology is based on taking a holistic view of the elective care pathway and identifying service improvements and productivity gains at every possible touchpoint.

Providing ICS-wide visibility of elective care performance

To support Four Eyes Insight’s programme of works, our data dashboard brings all your elective care performance and variation data from across the ICS into one central location, delivering system-wide benefits:

• – Providing clear visibility of performance against targets, both strategic and operational views
• – Rapidly identifying areas of concern to reduce variation within the ICS
• – Encouraging cross-organisational collaboration with a simultaneous focus on efficiency and quality
• – Providing the opportunity to share learnings and best practice to amplify and standardise operational performance across the system
• – Enabling positive stakeholder engagement in your continuous improvement programmes
• – Supports governance and compliance frameworks

 

The manual process of aggregating performance data to monitor elective care recovery is a laborious task but our Insight Portal provides immediate productivity gains through the automation of ICS-wide data collection and aggregation.

About Four Eyes Insight

As providers continue to work toward elective recovery, Four Eyes Insight is here to help.

We use the combined power of people, data and technology to get to the root cause of NHS elective care pathway inefficiencies; working collaboratively and engaging with all stakeholders to get buy in for change from the ground up. We implement interventions that optimise elective care pathways and provide tools to monitor their effectiveness ensuring that a culture of continuous improvement to drive long term, sustainable change is embedded along the way.

If you would like to find out more or discuss your requirements, please email info@foureyesinsight.com

Download the guide to learn more about how Four Eyes Insight can support your Integrated Care System.