Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

When looking for a solution to underpin performance improvement projects with the common goal of reducing length of stay, and recognising that this solution would need to provide discharge planning, decision support, and business intelligence that incorporated real time visibility of bed states and the status of discharge planning activity trust-wide, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) piloted and reviewed numerous products and selected RealTime (a brand new product) in preference to all other systems on the market. CUH took this decision because:

• RealTime is the only solution to offer a platform for integrating operational and clinical process in discharge planning and patient flow, in an environment that makes a collaborative model of working conducive for all services;
• The architecture of the RealTime product provides real time KPI dashboard functionality to generate the decision support necessary to drive through transformational performance improvement;
• Reducing length of stay is the common denominator in all the CUH performance improvement projects in areas related to patient flow, and this is the principle driver in the design of the RealTime product (based on decades of clinician-designed and led turnaround methods);
• RealTime’s scope extends effortlessly to vitally important related areas such as real time, location-based infection control.

As RealTime significantly raises the bar in the market for ‘at a glance’ patient information systems, CUH requested and entered into a business partnership agreement with RealTime Health Ltd to allow both parties to promote RealTime in the market, so convinced was CUH of the benefits. CUH has accordingly applied the most thorough and rigorous discipline in the validation and agreement of requirements and specifications for the initial product releases to see the light of day, and has undertaken stringent testing in the integration phase in line with their responsibilities as business partners. While this cooperation has meant that CUH’s role in the initial stages has been closer to R&D partner than commercial partner, the result is a product that is demonstrably ‘fit for purpose’ in the NHS and beyond. This has reaped great rewards already, with the implementation of RealTime in Scarborough being an 'out of the box', or 'configurable off-the-shelf' solution that deploys the Cambridge system almost in toto. (Read the Yorkshire Post front page article here.)