Medway looks for Advanced efficiencies

Medway Community Healthcare expects to meet up to 20% of its efficiency targets by deploying a new community healthcare system from Advanced Health and Care.

Medway Community Healthcare, a social enterprise with 1,100 staff that provides community services to around 280,000 people, is the first customer of Advanced Community, which was launched in February.

It is rolling out the system in phases, starting this summer with community nursing teams and specialist cardiology services.

The whole roll out – to more than 30 different services – is expected to take two years, but eventually 700 members of staff will have smartcard access to the system.

Medway Community Healthcare head of informatics and performance Rob Howard said it would help staff maximise their time with patients, and the community interest company is expecting to meet 10-20% of its efficiency targets through the deployment.

Advanced Community builds on Advanced Health and Care’s existing products, while adding purpose-built mobile and applications and mobile workforce management tools.

The company says its core functionality includes referral management, care planning, assessments, patient records, bed management and appointment booking.

Staff will have access to the Personal Demographics Service via the NHS data spine. They will also be able to share records between staff and with other agencies, depending on how it is configured.

“This is a system built around its ability to support mobile working and we see the benefits of avoiding some unnecessary journeys back to base to capture some of the notes clinicians are currently writing on pen and paper,” Howard said.

However, he added that because the CIC serves both a rural and an urban population, offline working is “essential” to avoid connection problems. He expects staff to use the system on a range of devices, including smart phones, tablets and laptops.

“It [the roll out] is seen as a top priority,” said Howard. “It’s an exciting opportunity and big in terms of enabling our workforce to be more productive.”

The organisation has a good relationship with local GPs and is in the process of setting up a GP referral group to look at what information could be shared between services, he added.

The system is being funded by the local primary care trust. Advanced Health and Care managing director Jim Chase said that more than 70% of community staff work away from their offices.

The new system has been designed with mobile working at its core to help to the community healthcare sector manage a mobile and distributed workforce.