South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, in north-east England, has agreed a five-year deal with Synopsis that will see its paper-based pre-operative process become entirely digital.
The trust will launch Synopsis Home and Synopsis iQ at The James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough and the Friarage Hospital in Northallerton in the coming months.
Synopsis iQ will allow staff at the trust to manage each patient’s elective surgery pathway – including pre-operative health questionnaires and post-operative outcomes – from a central digital dashboard.
The trust will also ask elective surgery patients to complete their digital health questionnaire at home or out of hospital using Synopsis Home.
The platform will integrate with the trust’s patient administration, EPR and theatre scheduling systems, with data made immediately available to hospital staff.
The trust’s clinical lead for pre-assessment services said: “Synopsis iQ will allow us to transform our perioperative pathway to a fully electronic platform which will further improve each patient’s experience alongside service efficiency.
“It will facilitate a significant reduction in paper trail, replacing it with a central digital dashboard linked to our PAS and theatre scheduling systems that contains all relevant patient information, both pre- and post-operation, in one place.”
Michael Applethwaite, regional sales director at Synopsis, said: “Using Synopsis Home and iQ will also allow hospital staff to quickly triage and identify patients that are fit and ready for their operation from those who require a more detailed, hospital-based assessment, while benefitting from referrals and replies being contained within one system, alongside completed risk assessments.
“This will be important to help the trust get as many elective surgery patients as possible assessed and prioritised in the shortest time frame following the delays caused by the pandemic.”
Other trusts using Synopsis Home and iQ include Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which launched the platform in June 2020.
Speaking at the time, the trust’s senior sister for pre-operative assessment, Rachel Foley, said: “Earlier pre-operative assessment interventions using Synopsis iQ and Home are allowing us to identify patients at high risk of being unfit for their operation sooner, and intervene with more effective medical input to ensure they stand the best chance of their surgery going ahead.
“The platform is also helping us to reduce unnecessary pre-operative assessment visits, so we can reduce the number of patients in waiting rooms at any one time. This will be especially beneficial as we tackle the backlog of elective surgery postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.”
