|
The leading provider of healthcare intelligence and quality improvement services.
Accessibility
Reasons to choose CHKS
We focus on listening to our clients and applying insight for healthcare providers. Our products and services are issue-driven.
Best practice
Investigation and incident management training
Having worked on the development of the NPSA e-learning toolkit and with a wealth of experience delivering RCA training to health and social care personnel across the UK and Ireland, an ISTC needed to understand how it could use the NPSA’s RCA tools to help it understand and improve incident investigations and learning.
Welsh Risk Pool - risk management standards and advice
We were engaged by a large provider of nursing and residential care homes in the UK to undertake an independent review of the care provided for a
specific client. The review was commissioned by the service provider after an investigation by the local Primary Care Trust and following requests for further information from the client’s relative. The scope of the review covered the quality of care delivered to the client and also the standard of services in place at the time of the review.
Residential care home services review
We were engaged by a large provider of nursing and residential care homes in the UK to undertake an independent review of the care provided for a
specific client. The review was commissioned by the service provider after an investigation by the local Primary Care Trust and following requests for further information from the client’s relative. The scope of the review covered the quality of care delivered to the client and also the standard of services in place at the time of the review.
Root cause analysis review
North and West Belfast Health and
Social Services Trust had received a
letter of complaint from the family
of one of their clients who had been
subject to alleged inappropriate
behaviour from one of his fellow
residents. The family were keen to
know what the Trust was doing to
ensure this would not happen again.
An internal investigation had already
taken place but this had not used a
causal analysis approach.
Improving patient outcomes at Aneurin Bevan Health Board
The risk adjusted mortality ratio at Aneurin Bevan Health Board is now 72 compared with a risk adjusted mortality ratio average of 99 for all hospitals in Wales1. The trust believes that the success of this initiative can be attributed to ensuring that the reported data is a true reflection of activity within the trust but also at individual clinician level.
Accreditation at Cappagh National Orthopaedic Hospital
Cappagh National Orthopaedic Hospital is
Ireland’s major centre for elective orthopaedic surgery. It has been the pioneer of orthopaedic surgery in Ireland and is now the biggest
dedicated orthopaedic hospital in the country.
The importance of data and clinical coding quality
Work carried out for a client found that end of life care was being significantly underrecorded.
Further examination has shown that this is likely to be happening in all
trusts. There are major implications for commissioners developing end of life care
strategies and risk adjustment models for mortality. It also raises some questions
about the measurement of potential improvements in length of stay.
Quality improvement through action learning: breaking down the barriers to quality improvement
To dismantle resistance to the
implementation of accreditation standards
and to use the accreditation process to facilitate organisational development through
an Action Learning intervention in a Portuguese acute hospital.
Accreditation Online: bringing accreditation into the 21st century
Streamlining the accreditation process by eliminating the paperbased
system, this cutting-edge web-based platform is both user
and environmentally friendly, bringing this tried and tested
methodology for quality improvement into the 21st century.
Implementing the Dementia Strategy whilst making efficiency savings
Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust wanted to improve length of stay and ensure it provided the most appropriate and effective care for the patients being treated in the medical directorate.
A step forward to patient safety: a pan european approach
A standards committee within CEN, coordinated and financed by
The Swedish Standards Institute, established a pan-European
group of healthcare and quality management experts, including
CHKS and UMCG, to produce a guide for implementing ISO9001 in healthcare services.
Improving medicines safety: the audit trail
Administration of medicines is one
of the most prevalent areas for
errors in hospital care so robust
and effective audit of management
of medicines is a key process for
patient safety. But the volume of
safety and good practice
requirements means that audit tools
can be unwieldy and too time
consuming. So we designed an
effective tool to enable thorough
assessment of this vital care process without requiring huge time resources.
Board assurance through accreditation
At County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, the CHKS Accreditation Programme was one of the indicators that had a direct impact on the results of the trust's 2007/8 Annual Healthcheck when it was rated ‘excellent' for both services and use of resources. By mapping where Standards for Better Health had been used within the accreditation criteria, the trust was able to use this as an external assurance when determining compliance with the Healthcare Commission standards.
Getting the most from Signpost
We asked a number of leading trusts to share their key tips on how they use it to inform strategic and local decisions from resource utilisation and service planning to clinician appraisal and performance management.
Best practice leads to safer hospital environment
Instilling a culture of safety throughout the organisation has been a top priority for Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust for a number of years. It is this commitment that led to the trust winning the CHKS Patient Safety Award in 2008.
Taking responsibility for patient safety is Director of Nursing Tracey Nutter. She explains: “We have introduced a number of projects including reducing hospital mortality and infection rates. While I have the overall responsibility for patient safety, the Chief Executive, other Executive Directors and the wider Trust Board take an active role in developing the safety agenda and the Medical Director leads on specific aspects of safety work, such as the mortality project.”
Engaging clinicians for improving patient safety
All clinicians are wary of data and those at East Kent Hospitals University NHS Trust are no exception. For managers at the trust, ensuring clinicians are presented with credible data that they can have confidence in is a key challenge.
Improving data quality is the first step in developing relevant and meaningful clinical metrics and the trust’s Clinical Coding Programme, with its focus on improving training for clinical coders, is resulting in higher standards. Running alongside the Clinical Coding Programme is the trust’s Patient Safety Programme where CHKS is playing a key role in delivering information and providing strategic advice.
Informing commissioning of dementia services
Relevant and meaningful information supports the commissioning of dementia services and is a key priority for the South East Coast Strategic Health Authority. The NHS Information Centre has been instrumental in supporting the SHA’s work in this area. It worked in partnership with CHKS and the SHA to turn health needs assessment into a tangible entity by defining clinical metrics using existing data that are relevant and meaningful to clinicians and practitioners.
Informing Health Check and Foundation Trust applications
There were three factors driving Dartford Hospitals NHS Trust's decision to use the Signpost corporate reporting and clinical management system. First, the national standards and targets used by the Healthcare Commission's Annual Health Check; second, the requirements of Foundation Trust status; and finally, the need to demonstrate efficiency to primary care trusts and others. All of these meant the Trust needed a comparative tool to assess clinical performance, outcomes and productivity.
Improving performance
Signpost has given a significant boost to the drive for improvements in data quality at East & North Hertfordshire NHS Trust. The Trust is using Signpost through its clinical efficiency work streams to spotlight areas where improvements could be made. The Trust's coding department is also using Signpost to measure performance against the Depth and Data Quality index.
Informing the Strategic Plan
Producing a joint strategic needs assessment within a twelve week timeframe is hard work for any PCT. Faced with this task, East Sussex Downs and Weald and Hastings and Rother PCTs and East Sussex County Council realised that they needed outside help and in July 2007 went out to competitive quotation for the work.
"CHKS helped the vision become a reality in a very short space of time."
Cynthia Lyons, Deputy Director of Public Health
Understanding the financial impact of clinical coding
After a comparative coding analysis undertaken by CHKS for Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust (now part of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust) highlighted income concerns across four specialties, CHKS recommended a 200 case note audit in general surgery, plastic surgery, neurosurgery and neurology.
The case note audit revealed discrepancies between information in the case notes and the coded episodes and the impacted they had on income. Clinical coding needed to be improved and the audit suggested this could be achieved through greater clinical involvement.
Managing the media
When a local newspaper reporter contacted Southport & Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust investigating a potential 'bad news' story, a swift response was required to get the facts straight. According to a national study into the length of stay following major abdominal surgery, the Trust had performed particularly badly and the newspaper wanted to know why. Turning to Signpost, the CHKS corporate reporting and clinical management system, Trust managers were able to quickly extract key information to arm their response.