We sit down with CLEO Systems’ Board Medical Director, Dr Paul Perry, to find out what’s new. In this, the second of our blogs, we talk about urgent care from a clinicians’ point of view and how operational efficiency and clinical safety is a critical focus for urgent care providers today. Let’s find out more!
Positive operational and clinical benefits
Paul says: ‘In the urgent care space at the moment, what we are seeing is really important operational benefits you should be expecting from your clinical systems. Urgent care providers are focusing on how operational benefits can enhance the patient pathway and clinician work environment - and the challenge of how to do more with less.
The demand for urgent care services is increasing, and providers must find ways to streamline their operations without compromising the quality of patient care. A year ago, measured efficiency might not have been a primary concern for urgent care providers, but it certainly is now.
I've seen firsthand how innovative technologies can transform the delivery of healthcare in urgent care. The new "Booked Appointments" system that the CLEO team have developed is a prime example of how technology can enhance operational efficiency in a safe, effective way with urgent care.
This system allows clinicians to work from appointment books that our operational navigation teams can directly allocate patients to. The result? Clinicians are reporting significant improvements in clinical productivity and queue management, leading to better compliance and reduced breaches.
What should an urgent care professional expect from their clinical system?
I've been a practicing GP for 15 years and I have seen firsthand the power of an intuitive and easy to use solution when you are treating patients. From a clinician's perspective, what you are looking for is a solution that is robust, clinically safe and created with the patient journey in mind.
It’s amazing how a bad system can hinder your ability to do a fantastic job for patients. For me, it’s all about how clinicians can function, safely and effectively, within a volatile, uncertain, complex healthcare environment. I liken it to flying – and flying safely. If clinicians must operate in a stressful situation - with IT that hinders them, it can make for a bumpy ride.
The benefits of using a decent solution, go beyond operational efficiency and can have a profound impact on patient care. Features such as booking functionality and the ability to manage appointments more effectively means that clinicians can spend more time focusing on patients rather than administrative tasks. This not only improves the quality of care but also reduces the cognitive burden on clinicians, allowing them to function more effectively even in high-pressure situations. Booking functionality has been proven to increase patient consultations by 50%.
Relationships, collaborations and partnerships: Key to Success
Collaboration and partnership working is so important in the urgent care space and leads directly to enhanced patient care. From talking to many other clinicians, and via my own experiences - relationships, partnerships and collaboration are a key area. The things we’ve been able to work on with our partners is nothing short of extraordinary and enables us to have a symbiotic relationship that is instrumental in addressing the challenges specific to urgent and scheduled care.
Relationship and partnership set solution providers apart. We are keen to collaborate and provide a real partnership with our customers, meaning that are delivering against their wish list and achieving functionality wins for our customer.
Our new Booked appointment system for example means clinicians can manage their own caseloads, ensuring safer queue oversight and prioritisation of urgent care needs.
What does the patient expect from urgent care?
People accessing urgent care are putting their trust in clinicians and urgent care providers.
Take a look at our work on our new ‘booked appointments system’ which allows for a new and improved patient experience, giving patients the opportunity to be given appointment time slots, including seamless patient scheduling for booked appointments within an IUC service.
We work on the basis of continuous improvement and patient centered, a balanced blend of features that enhance overall efficiency and patient care.
One of the standout features of a good clinical system in the urgent care space is interoperability. In urgent care, having access to a patient's care record is crucial. A good solution allows for seamless integration with shared care records, providing clinicians with a comprehensive view – or a snapshot - of a patient's medical history. This capability is essential for making informed clinical decisions and ensuring continuity of care of patients.
Operational efficiency is a critical focus for urgent care providers today and a collaborative approach from your system provider will really make them a standout choice. User-friendliness and reliability are also key factors – and being able to evolve to meet the needs of healthcare providers.
My role is all about ensuring clinical safety is at the heart of everything we do, combined with continuous quality improvement of our solutions.
Let me leave you with some quotes:
"What I love about CLEO Systems is the interoperability. Our provider is central to a number of new multi-provider system collaborations to improve patient care, such as the Unscheduled Care Coordination Hub and Covid Medicines Units. CLEO Systems have built integration solutions to enable safe transfer of information between providers, virtual consultations and remote monitoring capability, meaning we were able to mobilise these innovative ways of working at pace and deliver high quality care to patients out of hospital, easing pressure on the local system."
"As an Urgent Primary Care Doctor, I find Cleo systems enables clear, concise documentation options with templates and queue filters allowing me to ensure I retain safe oversight of clinical queues and can identify the most urgent care needs. The integration of PaCCs enables prompt access to relevant onward service referrals and ambulance response options if required, as well as easily accessible options to raise Safeguarding concerns about my patients. I can't imagine working with anything else!"
“The team are always on hand to support us in improving and refining the clinical documentation software to enable further enhancements to our services and patient care.”
“It’s more fun when you work with CLEO.”