Whittington Health deploys patient safety software
Datix system provides a single solution for intregrated care organisation
Patient safety software has been deployed by Whittington Health, a new organisation established from the integration of the The Whittington Hospital NHS Trust with the community health services of Islington and Haringey primary care trusts and Islington social services.
The organisation, which employs more than 4,500 people serving a catchment population of 440,000, is using Datix software to create a single patient safety framework that manages adverse incidents, risks, claims and complaints, plus health and safety issues across the new integrated care organisation (ICO).
Datix was first installed by Whittington Hospital NHS Trust in July 2007 to replace the previous manual process for managing all patient safety, health and safety incidents as well as claims and complaints at the hospital. The formation of Whittington Health last year created a new set of challenges. In addition to more patients and 2,000 additional staff, the increased emphasis on delivering a wider range of community care services meant a diverse range of professionals including district nurses, health visitors, nutritionists, podiatrists and sexual health specialists also needed access to the system.
After conducting a comprehensive Datix health check to determine the feasibility of using the system across all its services, Whittington Health went live with the latest version of Datix - v11.
Liz Bennett, Datix manager and risk manager at Whittington Health, said, “Datix has given us a powerful, fully-integrated platform for managing all incidents, risks, claims and complaints across the organisation. It gives us the flexibility we need to build on the openness we have with GPs, community and council partners and achieve ambitious levels of quality health care for our patients.”
The solution is already delivering a range of benefits to managers, staff and patients, in particular vastly improved incident reporting. It has also enabled Whittington Health to introduce consistent ways of working that save time and boost productivity and there is now a three-step process for incident reporting followed by all 4,500 Datix users.
Next on the horizon is the imminent launch of the Datix Dashboards facility. This will enable directors from different divisions to review data relating to traditionally-siloed areas of information, such as incidents and complaints, on one single page. In addition, Whittington Health will shortly deploy Datix Hotspots to help identify areas where increased levels of incidents may be a cause for concern and then automatically flag up when those incidents reach certain breach thresholds over a given timeframe.
Jonathan Hazan, chief executive of Datix, said: “With decades of experience developing watertight solutions for the NHS, Datix provides the perfect vehicle for ambitious and innovative organisations like Whittington Health, which strive for excellence and put patients at the heart of everything they do. Our technology enables best practice ways of working that demonstrably drive continual improvement and support the incident and risk management aims of an organisation.”
