Leicestershire PCTs saving approx £2m from clinical IT

Health software supplier Ethitec has calculated that the six primary care trusts in Leicestershire are making efficiency savings worth the equivalent of £2m a year through their use of its Tiara9 clinical information system for allied health professions.

The savings are extrapolated from data taken from the clinical information system based on reduced numbers of missed appointments, increased re-use of cancelled appointments and clinicians being able to carry out more patient consultations.

Tiara9 was developed by software solutions provider Ethitec to produce an electronic patient record and appointments management solution for adult community therapy services in Leicestershire.

Since going live in October 2002 the system has been rolled out to around 400 clinicians and has recently been extended into child therapy.

Ethitec says that statistics show that since the Tiara9 systems was introduced ‘did not attend’ (DNA) rates – missed appointments – are down by 12%. In addition patient contacts per clinician are up by over 100 per year and 58% of appointments cancelled by patients are now being successfully re-used.

The reduction in DNA rates has been sustained across the five services of physiotherapy, occupational therapy, dietetics, podiatry and speech and language therapy since Tiara was implemented and represents over 22,000 fewer wasted appointments annually.

Ethitec claims that the improved management of clinical resources, aided by the ability to monitor clinics and waiting lists in real-time, has helped clinicians to see more patients. It says face-to-face contacts per clinician across the six PCTs are up by an average of over two per week, equating to over 42,000 additional contacts each year.

In total Ethitec says the improvements in efficiency enabled clinical staff to make over 73,000 extra patient contacts last year alone.

Estimates of the cost to the NHS of an appointment vary from £18 for a 10 minute GP appointment to over £100 for an appointment at a hospital. Nationally agreed values supporting Payment by Results for Therapy contacts vary from £26 (Podiatry) to £233 (Adult Speech and Language Therapy). Ethitec reached the figure £2.5m worth of extra appointments for the six PCTs using an average figure of £35 per appointment.

“These are efficiency gains rather than cash releasing,” said Ethitec commercial director Simon Taylor, told EHI. “It means that the PCTs could deliver a higher quality of care in Leicestershire equivalent to approximately 15 extra therapists.”

Derek Coker, senior project manager for Leicestershire Health Informatics Service said of the Tiara project: “Not only were healthcare professionals involved at every stage of development, but the benefits to patients are measurable. This is what I joined NHS IT for – Tiara has improved service levels for patients and at a clinical level the system is synchronised with established clinical practice.”

Taylor, added: “These efficiency gains combined with the resulting fall in waiting times show just what can be achieved by the successful deployment of high quality IT solutions within the NHS.”

Taylor told EHI that Ethitec calculated the efficiency savings after it recently met with Secretary of State for Health Patricia Hewitt, who advised them that the needed to demonstrate the financial benefits of their software to participate in the NHS IT modernisation programme.