Digital audit management tool helps Lancashire trust save time and money

Lanchashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has reported that it has saved time and money after employing a digital management tool to streamline auditing requirements in one system.

The audit management and tracking tool (AMaT), supplied by Meantime IT, provides an interactive and intuitive online tool for trust staff to register, manage and report on clinical audit.

The aim of the tool, which went live in 2016, was to free up clinician’s and healthcare professional’s time, allowing them to spend more time on care and less time filling out lengthy paper reports.

Alison Leather, clinical audit and effectiveness manager at the Trust, said: “AMaT has reduced the time taken to carry out an audit, and increased visibility of the process.

“This is helping to make sure that quality improvement actions are more embedded in the culture and activity of the trust.”

The tool allows clinical teams to register audits, associate guidance such as NICE quality standards, complete audits online, and manage action plans and scheduling.

It also provides a visual representation on the improvements being made across the Trust.

“Now we don’t have any pieces of paper coming into the office,” said Alison.

“After about 12 months of use, the process now is entirely online.

“We had around 250 audits every year using our old system. There were 467 audit and quality improvement projects registered last year.”

The tool features a ward and area support section, which increases visibility of ward-based audits to other teams such as pharmacy and outreach allowing for quicker feedback on care.

The Trust has saved £40,000 simply by not replacing retiring staff that don’t need to be replaced after taking on AMaT.

“We looked at different systems on the market,” Alison added.

“There was nothing that did everything that we wanted it to do, for example ward audits and NICE compliance statements.

“We thought, there must be something better out there. We worked with Meantime and they have developed a solution that best meets our needs.”

The Trust believes AMaT, or something similar, could be used to streamline audit processes in other NHS organisations.