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Reaping the rewards: The benefits of RiO

Case study 1

North East London NHS Foundation Trust – improving client care

 

Since it started using RiO in 2007, North East London NHS Foundation Trust has reaped the benefits of being able to provide better client care, as well as staff working more effectively and efficiently. The Trust provides mental health services in the London boroughs of Barking and Dagenham, Havering, Redbridge and Waltham Forest, serving a community of almost one million people.

Prior to RiO, the Trust used a variety of computer and paper based systems in each individual service. Information was difficult to track and share, electronic systems could not communicate and there was just one paper record available to view at a time. RiO has driven significant service improvements and led to better care for clients.

The Trust’s chief executive, Judy Wilson, commented: “We are looking at really big benefits. RiO means it is so much easier to transfer data and drive forward quality and unified standards based on NICE guidelines. The deployment of RiO allowed the Trust to drive forward a standard approach to service delivery across all four boroughs, which made the transformation to working together straightforward and quick.” Thanks to RiO, the Trust’s staff are experiencing benefits in all these areas:

  • Quick access to care records
    Staff can now access a client’s care record at the click of a button, even if someone else is reading it at the same time. Before RiO it could take up to 24 hours to track a paper record.
  • Better bed management
    RiO helps staff manage bed lists more effectively. Real time access to ward availability has meant that the time it takes to find beds has fallen from half an hour to one minute.
  • Saves time form filling
    RiO reduces the amount of time clinical and administration staff spend filling in assessment and referral forms because previous assessments can be called up in a matter of seconds. One staff member agrees: “RiO makes everything we do quicker – referrals, discharges and communication between teams.”
  • Clinical processes standardised across sites
    RiO is designed so that all the clinical processes are standardised across the trust. This has reduced client risk and delay as well as the problems associated with illegible handwriting and missing dates.
  • Routine clinical risk assessment
    RiO makes clinical risk assessment a routine procedure at the trust. Since RiO went live, the number of risk assessments carried out each month has risen from 50 to 500, leading to higher standards.

Download RiO Mental Health Solution (PDF)

Case study 2

RiO delivers a wide range of benefits at Lambeth Primary Care Trust (PCT)

 

Lambeth PCT has demonstrated how, by introducing the RiO system and embracing the changes involved, it has transformed its community healthcare and delivered valuable benefits to both staff and patients. The Trust initially started with a programme to use RiO in four areas: in-patients, supported discharge, podiatry and customer services. This was followed by universal and specialist child health, haemoglobinopathies, community nursing, adult therapies out-patients, housebound podiatry, community dietetics and complementary therapies clinic.

Before RiO, the Trust used a variety of computer and paper based systems in each individual service. Information was difficult to track and share, electronic systems could not communicate with each other and there was just one paper record available to view at a time. Through the deployment of RiO, the Trust has been able to demonstrate how the system has driven service improvement and led to better care for patients.

Thanks to RiO, the Trust’s staff are experiencing benefits in all these areas:

  • Patient appointments
    A 50% reduction in Did Not Attend (DNA) rates was achieved within six months of go-live as customer services teams gained access to all clinic and healthcare professional diaries. Interactive diary reminders mean they can proactively contact every patient about their appointment.
  • In-patient units
    Bed management across the Trust’s three sites is easier as the bed layout function in RiO supports monitoring, target data, bed state reports, planning single gender wards and bed closures.
  • Podiatric clinics
    The clinic schedule allows the customer services team to book the clinic location best suited to the client’s specific needs and choice. The use of Subjective, Objective, Assessment and Plan (SOAP) working is supported in RiO by means of full progress notes, which are entered for each appointment within five minutes.
  • Child health
    Every two weeks the immunisation scheduler is run which supports fast and efficient targeting of children who have not been immunised. It highlights children who may be at risk during an epidemic and prevents re-scheduling the following intervention in no more than two weeks.
    The BCG protocol allows for all new births to be offered a hand-delivered BCG appointment during the new birth visit by the health visitor. During the drafting of a common framework assessment staff can use the maternal link to locate mother and sibling records relevant to a specific child. This helps to identify and contact close relatives of a ‘child at risk’.
  • Community nursing
    The healthcare professional diary ensures much greater operational efficiency by keeping track of every practitioners’ whereabouts at any time. It can, for example, freeze appointments and clinics to avoid booking patients during practitioners’ leave dates by aligning with the clinic appointment schedule.

“Within two months of using RiO I found myself wondering how I ever did without it.”

Staff Nurse, Elderly Care Unit

"Now that we have access to all the PCT clinic schedules, we were able to help a distressed patient after she had accidentally missed her appointment. We found an empty appointment at another PCT clinic, with the same podiatrist the next morning. Before RiO we only knew about our own clinic appointments.”

Receptionist

“RiO means that we can now see contemporaneous records and progress notes from each others caseloads and it is so useful having the ‘Alert’ function. It will give us a useful flag to ensure looked after children are cared for better.”

Team Lead - Looked After Children

“Having our new birth feed within 24 hours helps us support ‘at risk’ and child protection children much easier – it used to depend on the internal mail system which was not always efficient.”

Health visitor

“It took several weeks getting used to RiO but now having the patient’s whole record available at the press of one button is excellent – we no longer have to pull and re-file folders.”

Podiatrist

“RiO will help us find out important details about our new patients and learn what is happening to them with other teams or disciplines, such as outpatient physiotherapy or podiatry – a holistic system at last.”

District Nurse

Download RiO Community Health Solutions (PDF)