Posts Tagged ‘Therapies’

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Got a research idea that could improve productivity in Therapies?

Friday, October 7th, 2011

We’re interested in talking to you.

Science, Medicine and Engineering Graduates are being invited to apply for several £80,000 grants which will help to pay salaries and fees for three years.

The Fellowships are awarded by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 and are aimed at Graduates carrying out research in industry or being sponsored by a company to do an Engineering Doctorate (EngD). Eight “Industrial Fellowships” are awarded each year to those who wish to work towards a higher degree by developing a product or research project of future commercial value based jointly in industry and a university.

The aim of the programme is to support the development of science and technology by giving fellowships and grants to pure research in science and engineering, applied research in industry, industrial design and other projects. It is motivated by the Commission’s altruistic aim to “extend the influence of art and science upon productive industry”.

Previous award winners currently used the grant to develop their work in a variety of research areas including Chemistry, Aerospace and Defence, Materials Testing, Pharmaceuticals, Medicine and Electronics.

The Fellowships will fund half of an applicant’s salary for three years,  as well as their university fees and travel expenses.

Graduates wishing to apply require a First Class degree in the fields of Engineering, Science or Medicine along with a project that will lead to a patent, product or process in conjunction with a higher academic award such as an EngD.

“The Commission is looking for the brightest and best of a generation,” says Nigel Williams, Secretary of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851.

The closing date for applications is Thursday 26th January.

If you have any ideas which relate to Therapies and are considering applying, we’d be very interested in hearing from you, so get in touch HERE.

Additional information can be found at the Commission’s website.

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Therapies Waiting List Challenges for NHS Managers

Monday, September 26th, 2011

Health Bosses in the Gwent region of Wales have stated that keeping waiting times for Therapies and Diagnostics low as the key to sustaining overall targets for treatment are proving a challenge.

Diagnostic and Therapy Services for NHS Wales are no longer subject to formal waiting times, but instead have “operational standards” surrounding the maximum amount of time patients should expect to wait. Maintaining the minimum wait for all services is still essential to the achievement of the overall “referral-to-treatment” (RTT) time target of a minimum 95% of patients having an initial contact inside 26 weeks and ensuring that no patients wait outside of 36 weeks unless they personally elect to.

In Wales at the end of July, 7,274 people had waited longer than the standard 8 weeks for a range of diagnostic services, with endoscopy providing by far the biggest proportion, at more than 45%. In Gwent the number of patients waiting was 381 for all diagnostic services, with almost 70% waiting for an endoscopy. Fifty patients in Gwent, out of 253 Wales-wide had also waited longer than the standard 14 weeks for Therapy.

The Aneurin Bevan Health Board report which revealed these concerns has reported however that the area is doing “comparatively well” at minimising the numbers of patients who wait longer than they should for the likes of endoscopy, scans, radiology procedures, and within Therapies.

Trusts will always require accurate knowledge and efficient management of waiting times in order to maintain a high level of patient care, so it is essential that NHS Managers are provided with the best tools to do so. An Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system such as Therapy Manager offers quick and simple waiting list management for all Outpatients awaiting initial contacts which can be delineated by specialty, and allows direct booking from the waiting list. It also produces outputs with provide an accurate and real-time picture on the number of patients waiting and the duration across each service.

Original Source South Wales Argus

About Pathway Software

Pathway Software (www.pathwaysoftware.com) specialises in the design and development of patient information systems for Allied Health professionals.

Its flagship product, Therapy Manager, is an Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system specifically designed for Therapy Services to provide decision makers with the ability to track and manage clinical activity and analyse cost of care by patient, episode or service. The system also demonstrably reduces administration time and the costs of managing Therapy Services.

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Success of technology for Occupational Therapists

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011
Research at Sydney’s Royal Rehabilitation Centre has revealed that the use of smart technology and applications by Occupational Therapists (OT’s) can have a positive influence on helping patients recover from brain injury.

The research found that the use of tablets, smartphones and other intelligent technology  can help to counteract memory loss, helping patients remember day to day tasks such as taking medication and attending appointments.

Over a three year period, the study observed 42 people with brain injuries who were mostly men with an average age of 35 years. One group were provided with paper diaries while the other were given Personal Digital Assistants (PDA’s) to record information coupled with an hour of one-on-one PDA training each week across an eight week period.

OT professor leader Belinda Carr at the centre said the study indicated that whilst the diaries were useful in helping patients improve their functional memory, smart technology was superior in it’s effects.

Typically, she asserted that patients suffering from brain injury can have a short-term memory span of as little as five minutes, vastly reducing their ability to remember everyday task and their level of independence. As opposed to the static nature of paper diaries, the interface of smart technology and their ability to provide continual prompts can be even more effective in aiding in memory.

Ms Carr, who presented the research at the Occupational Therapy Australia Conference, urged OT’s to invest more in developing technology to ensure better outcomes for both patients and clinicians.

“We found that the technology improved the client’s functional memory. The number and seriousness of memory failures improved,” she said. “Importantly, the client’s caregivers reported lower frequency of forgetting after eight weeks training”, implying that technology may have a role to play in memory training.

Original Source NCAH

About Pathway Software

Pathway Software (www.pathwaysoftware.com) specialises in the design and development of patient information systems for Allied Health professionals.

Its flagship product, Therapy Manager, is an Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system specifically designed for Therapy Services to provide decision makers with the ability to track and manage clinical activity and analyse cost of care by patient, episode or service. The system also demonstrably reduces administration time and the costs of managing Therapy Services.

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Reducing the cost of lost and misplaced equipment in Therapies

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
Within Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy we often hear about the cost of equipment that is lent to patients and not returned. Obviously, the scale of this “loss” varies from Trust to Trust but a recent initiative by Bradford Teaching Hospitals revealed that annually £100,000 worth of equipment, including crutches, walking frames and Tens pain relief machines, was not returned to Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Luke’s Hospital.

The challenges surrounding the issue of equipment and stock management include:

  • Understanding stock levels
  • Accurately checking-in and checking-out equipment
  • Tracking equipment
  • Recovering equipment

Understanding Stock Levels

Without a very disciplined process or a dedicated (and often expensive) asset management system it is often difficult to maintain an accurate view of equipment stock levels. This in turn often leads to departments carrying higher levels of stock than is necessary so that a) they don’t run out and b) they allow for the current levels of non returns.

Therapy Manager provides a core level of functionality that allows users to set up initial stock positions for all stock items, minimum stock re-order levels and supplier ordering details. Additionally, for items that are not bar-coded it can generate a bar-code label that can be applied to the asset.

Accurately checking-in and checking-out equipment

To maintain accurate stock levels and run with a lower level of stock clinicians must diligently record when assets are taken from stock. This is potentially error prone and is often time-consuming.

Using Therapy Manager in conjunction with a bar-code scanner staff can check in/out equipment from a central equipment store quickly and easily.

Tracking Equipment

When equipment is allocated to a patient, tracking is often reliant upon good record-keeping. In particular it requires that there is a clearly defined link between a patient and a uniquely identifiable asset (via a serial number or equivalent).

When equipment is checked-out using Therapy Manager an entry is placed in the Patient Summary indicating what was given to the patient, by whom, when it was given to the patient and the barcode of the asset, thereby ensuring that there is a clear audit trail of allocation to the patient.

Recovering Equipment

To run with lower stock levels and maximise the recovery of equipment it is imperative that stock is recovered from patients.

To facilitate this, standard letters can automatically be generated by Therapy Manager and sent to patients asking them to return equipment. Where appropriate this can be followed up by a telephone call if the value of the asset warrants.

About Pathway Software

Pathway Software (www.pathwaysoftware.com) specialises in the design and development of patient information systems for Allied Health professionals.

Its flagship product, Therapy Manager, is an Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system specifically designed for Therapy Services to provide decision makers with the ability to track and manage clinical activity and analyse cost of care by patient, episode or service. The system also demonstrably reduces administration time and the costs of managing Therapy Services.

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Effective Class Management in Therapies

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
Background

The current NHS climate can mean that often multiple patients will have to be seen simultaneously within the same window of time, with equal care and consideration given to each one. This can prove to be a demanding process, so how can you ensure that classes are being managed to the highest standards to lead to the best patient outcomes?

Scheduling Classes

An Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system such as Therapy Manager provides you with a mechanism to schedule classes to meet your individual requirements. Having a centralised view on all classes and the patients attending them at a service-wide level ensures greater clarity when it comes to scheduling, ensuring that capacity is not wasted.

Patient Management

Adding a patient to one of these pre-defined classes gives you the option to:

  • Create patient appointments for specified dates or assume weekly attendance for a defined period
  • Record attendance or non-attendance (DNA or UTA) for all patients in the Class in one simple operation
  • Add and remove patients at the click of a button

The Diary and Patient Administration function of Therapy Manager ensures a comprehensive view of all patient attendances and clinical documentation, leading to an informed decision-making process on whether patients should continue treatment or be discharged.

Assessments and Notes

Therapy Manager has the capacity to create Assessments and Notes for specific patients which are time and date-stamped against the individual clinician. These can be used to:

  • Store and create exercise class Assessments
  • Link to a variety of Therapy-wide applications such as Physio Tools.
  • Enable a comparison of patient performance over time by using the Continuation Sheet function
  • Capture Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMS) to record the value of Therapy interventions for justification purposes.
Lists

As a consequence of registering an Outpatient referral on Therapy Manager, all patients requiring an Initial contact are added to a Waiting List, which captures all information pertaining to waiting times and is colour coded for an quick visual indicator of any patients that are to breach set thresholds. Patient can be booked directly from the Waiting List which can be comprised of individual class lists, ensuring that all clinicians can get a real-time view on demand and that this can be effectively managed and prepared for. The addition of the Personal List function also gives clinicians the ability to add patients to individually specified lists for Class management.

To conclude, Therapy Manager can be used effectively in a Class setting to reduce clinical input and give a conclusive and real-time view of all Class activity, ensuring the clinicians are best equipped to perform to the best standards.

About Pathway Software

Pathway Software (www.pathwaysoftware.com) specialises in the design and development of patient information systems for Allied Health professionals.

Its flagship product, Therapy Manager, is an Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system specifically designed for Therapy Services to provide decision makers with the ability to track and manage clinical activity and analyse cost of care by patient, episode or service. The system also demonstrably reduces administration time and the costs of managing Therapy Services.

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Posted in Performance Management | No Comments »

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