Automation increases staff engagement, improves incident reporting and creates a joined up approach to patient safety

Medway Community Healthcare (MCH), a social enterprise with over 1,300 staff and over 200 volunteers, has deployed Datix software to introduce a cohesive and consistent approach to patient safety and drive tangible improvements in services and care. The £57 million business has invested in Datix Incidents, Claims, Complaints, Customer Experience, Dashboards and Risk Register modules. Since implementing Datix technology, MCH has increased staff engagement, dramatically improved incident reporting and accelerated response and investigation timescales. Furthermore, patient and visitor feedback has improved year-on-year. Between April 2014 and March 2015, compliments outnumbered complaints by 13:1 and, of the 4,686 respondents to the annual customer feedback survey, 95% said they would recommend using the services of MCH to others.

Lesley Graham, Information Governance Facilitator at Medway Community Healthcare, said, “With the transformation of the organisation to a social enterprise, the time had come to find an automated solution to create a joined up approach to patient safety in an increasingly complex NHS landscape. Today, all staff have immediate access to incidents across the organisation and directors have clear visibility of serious incidents as they arise, putting them in complete control of their patient safety environment.”

When MCH first deployed the Datix solution, it was a shared service used by other healthcare commissioners. Today, the social enterprise has complete control of the paperless system that links records, runs reports and immediately notifies staff of priority actions from a single integrated platform. This means that staff follow consistent processes using a common language, which allows them to customise the sharing of selected information and keeps data secure at all times. The automatic feedback facility provided by the Datix system means staff can elect to see exactly what happens to the incidents they record. This gives a far greater sense of involvement and empowerment because people know their efforts are making a real difference to patient safety. In turn, this has had an impact on incident reporting in a positive way.

One of the biggest benefits of using Datix is that organisational leaders have instant access to accurate, pertinent information and are immediately notified of serious incidents using the Dashboards facility.

Immediate access to accurate information held in the Datix system has realised a series of clinical benefits. In addition to better documentation, information security and the ability to pinpoint training requirements at certain care home providers, community nurses have made significant improvements in processes relating to the assessment of pressure ulcer results, fall risks and have reduced the number of transfer of care incidents.

Jonathan Hazan, Director, Datix, concluded, “The NHS landscape is full of change and complexity and organisations like Medway Community Healthcare which have undergone significant transformation over the last few years rely on our technology to create a stable yet flexible, process-driven patient safety infrastructure. The transparency of data held in the Datix system removes ambiguity, helps leaders make better decisions and drive activity. In short, the system gives healthcare organisations a perfect line of sight between ward and organisational performance, putting them in complete control and supporting their quest to make tangible improvements to patient services and care.”

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About Medway Community Healthcare
Medway Community Healthcare (MCH) is a social enterprise Community Interest Company (CIC), providing community NHS services to the people of Medway and beyond. MCH is formed from the services directly provided by NHS Medway and has a strong history of partnership working with local GPs, Medway NHS Foundation Trust, Medway Council and other local stakeholders.
MCH is a £57 million business with over 1,300 staff providing a wide range of both planned and unscheduled care in local settings such as healthy living centres, inpatient units and people's homes.
Additionally, 237 MCH volunteers work alongside teams in the community and at the Wisdom Hospice giving 2,000 hours of their time each month to help MCH deliver care and make a positive impact on the health and wellbeing of patients.
As an organisation that provides a range of high quality clinical services across Medway, MCH competes for services with other providers from the NHS, independent and voluntary sectors. They use their knowledge and expertise to stay up to date on local new business opportunities.
MCH’s commitment is to ‘lead the way in excellent healthcare' and their employees, who have the opportunity to become shareholders and influence business decisions, all have a significant role to play in delivering this commitment to the communities they serve.
For more information, please visit MEDWAY COMMUNITY HEALTHCARE


About Datix

Datix has been a pioneer in the field of patient safety since 1986 and is today a leading supplier of software for patient safety, risk management, incident and adverse event reporting. Datix aims to help healthcare organisations build a culture and practice that drives excellence in patient safety. It recruits and retains people committed to the healthcare sector and continually invests in its software and services to ensure that it integrates best practice and learning.

Datix is focused on the health and social care sector. Its customers include public and private hospitals, primary care providers, GP surgeries, mental health and ambulance service providers. Its clients also include organisations delivering care home and domiciliary care services. Within the UK this includes more than 75% of the National Health Service. Internationally the Datix client base is growing rapidly and includes large scale deployments in Canada and the USA as well as clients in Europe, Australia and the Middle East.

Datix is headquartered in London, United Kingdom. To learn more, visit DATIX or call +44 (0)20 8971 1971


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