Decrease in inpatient average length of stay for patients staying >21 days
Additional critical care beds created
Lowered levels of nosocomial infections compared to other hospitals in the region
At the end of March 2020, an acute hospital asked TN to support them to complete a major emergency pathway transformation programme. This was in response to the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbating the ‘traditional’ pressures on the emergency pathway:
- Inadequate out-of-hospital capacity & blocked outflows
- Patient demand pressure
- Staffing challenges and low morale
In addition, there were further COVID-specific challenges:
- Additional complexity of patient segmentation due to new COVID cohorts
- Requirement to create a live map of capacity to track COVID cohorts
- Need to integrate infection prevention & control (IPC) measures into site operations
We adapted our traditional emergency pathway programme approach to support the trust with their crisis response to COVID, which involved:
- Optimising site management: Reviewed and streamlined site management processes under COVID SOPs, to create simple steps for decision making
- Defining the ‘COVID’ cohort: Agreed criteria for COVID cohorts, created a live map of patient cohorts across the hospital, and developed processes to ‘step’ patients down to non-COVID wards
- Modelling COVID pressures: Fine-tuned national COVID demand models with senior clinical leaders by incorporating local variables, to better understand pressures facing the trust
- Creating a ‘COVID Watchtower’: Consolidated COVID decision-making tools to create a central source of information to support critical daily decision making
