Air traffic control system for patients
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TIER 2 APPROVED
An innovative scheme described as ‘an air traffic control system for patients’ developed by NHS Cumbria CCG has helped streamline the patient referral process – in some cases from a couple of hours to 15 minutes.
The ‘Electronic Referral and Resource Matching Scheme’, shortlisted for the Health Service Journal Awards 2015, is now used by hospital and community services and enables electronic patient referrals between different health and social care sectors.
The system, developed by teams from NHS CCG and Strata Health Ltd, is used by nursing staff in hospitals in south Cumbria and is being rolled out in the north of the county. GPs are being added to the scheme and it is also used by workers in the third sector.
The Informatics Strata lead at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust reported positive feedback from clinicians describing the system as 'easier, simpler and quicker' to use than the previous one.