ART Healthcare (psHealth)

NHS problem

A fundamental challenge for any healthcare system or provider is ensuring that patients get to the right service first time – a complex optimisation challenge based on patient needs, clinical guidelines, local pathways, and capacity.

The NHS spends approximately £280million per annum manually processing referrals that are often inappropriate or missing information. This means errors, backlogs and delays in care (exacerbated by COVID-19).

In addition, as part of the NHS Long Term Plan, the Elective Care Transformation programme highlights the need to re-think referrals in light of a) rising demand for elective care services, b) the need to improve patient experience/access to care, c) a focus on integrated, person-centred care.

The solution

ART (Advanced Referral & Triage) supports more efficient and higher quality processing of referrals and enables providers to manage demand and to improve patient access and experience. ART delivers cost savings to the healthcare provider, improved patient safety and experience (right pathway first time), and overall health system benefits (reduced inappropriate referrals, better data for capacity planning).

Impact

Saving of approximately £270,000 per 100,000 referrals by automating 80-95% of admin tasks. ART automates administrative processes involved in the processing of referrals (e.g. transferring information into/between systems, checking completeness and appropriateness, capturing data, executing bookings, automating communication with GPs/patients/clinicians).

Time spent by clinician reduced by up to 40%: ART delivers all referral information in an intuitive user interface (UI) and provides decision support to speed up clinical triage.