Following the election in May ‘10 the government relaxed the rules governing waiting times, which suggested that there might be some respite from the unrelenting focus on RTT. However, many Trusts said that they would continue to apply the target as a strategic objective.

Now, David Cameron has announced that the RTT target has been reinstated and will be performance managed by the Department of Health (DoH).

So, RTT is back on the agenda.

Aside from the lack of overall clarity regarding adherence to RTT targets, we also come across a number of issues in relation to the production of RTT stats and the management of waiting lists. These include:

• Paper-based waiting lists
• Difficulties delineating waiting times by speciality (MSK, Neuro, Respiratory etc.)
• Excessive administrative time spent preparing waiting lists
• Waiting times are often available at a “moment in time” rather than real-time
• There is no “predictive view” of waiting times

Paper-based waiting lists

Many organisations we talk to are using paper-based mechanisms to track waiting times. Most often these take the form of folders (organised by speciality) on a shelf containing patient referrals and appointment letters organised alphabetically by patient name (for easy reference).

Whilst a paper-based system does the job, it is often time-consuming to produce, error prone and out of the date as soon as it has been produced.

Therapy Manager takes care of waiting list management with minimal administrative overhead. As soon as an Outpatient episode is created the patient is added automatically to the appropriate waiting list (For example: General, Diabetes, Paediatric lists in Dietetics).

Difficulties delineating waiting times by speciality

Paper-based models don’t lend themselves particularly well to identifying wait times and pinpointing capacity issues by specialty, principally because they are not real-time.

By automatically allocating patients to specialty waiting lists at registration, you have a continually up-to-date view of wait times, thereby enabling you to make informed decisions about resourcing and planning.

Excessive administrative time spent preparing waiting lists

In our experience the monthly production of waiting time stats is a source of great frustration for administrative staff which generally involves trawling through paper referral files and the creation of five-bar gates or complex Excel spreadsheets!

This is further exacerbated if specific questions are raised about the waiting list data that requires further analysis and paper processing.

With the correct setup waiting time reporting takes less than 30 seconds with Therapy Manager. It is simply a question of running the report and the data will be automatically populated directly from the Therapy Manager database. This data can even be exported into Excel so that it can be emailed directly to the appropriate team (i.e. Finance, Information, Performance & Planning).

Waiting times are often available at a “moment in time” rather than real-time

With a paper-based model each waiting list preparation cycle generally takes a couple of days which obviously detracts from the normal workload of administration. Consequently, it is done once and then not revisited until the next reporting deadline.

Whilst this is perfectly understandable it means that operational decision-making underpinned by previous month waiting list data is likely to be inaccurate.

Within Therapy Manager waiting list reports and analysis can be run anytime (both by administrators and Heads of Service) to provide a real-time view on wait times. These are presented in “traffic lighted” tables so that patients that are likely to “breach” or already “in breach” can be quickly identified and actioned.

There is no “predictive view” of waiting times

Therapy Manager provides a “week span” report view that shows the total number patients waiting by configurable time-spans (For example: 1-2 weeks, 2-4 weeks, 4-6 weeks etc.). This allows you to identify capacity pinch-points and plan accordingly.

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.