Posters

Urgent ophthalmic referral service: workload management, follow-up distribution & communication with stakeholders before & after the introduction of electronic records

Poster Details

First Author: M.Moutsou UK

Co Author(s):    E. Mountney   J. Bandejas                 

Abstract Details

Purpose:

The aim of this study is to assess workload management in the Urgent Ophthalmic Referral Service (UORS), follow-up distribution & efficacy of communication with stakeholders before and after the introduction of electronic records in September 2017 & 2018, respectively.

Setting:

Queen Mary’s Hospital King’s College Hospital NHS Trust

Methods:

Data of all cases attending the UORS in the 3rd week of September (Monday to Friday), a standard week outside the holiday season, was collected from manually completed outcome sheets for 2017 & from electronic records (Medisoft) for 2018 & analysed by a single clinician.

Results:

Attendances increased throughout the week by average 11% in 2018, whereas workforce remained essentially the same. The average patient-clinician ratio increased from 6.02 per session in 2017 to 6.58 in 2018, whereas the diagnostic profile remained similar in both cohorts. Onward referrals increased from 29.8% to 45.7%. Recording has improved significantly with 7 cases not having their diagnosis recorded in 2018, compared to 25 cases in 2017. Two cases didn’t have outcome letter produced in 2018. Currently, recording of ethnic background, past ophthalmic & medical history and duration of treatment needs to be further improved.

Conclusions:

The study shows small increase of workload for the defined period, managed by adequate staff. It demonstrates improvement of record keeping electronically with clearly stated diagnosis, management plan, triage nurse and clinician names for the majority of cases. Standardised induction of staff on the properties of the specific software and guidance on the importance of demographic and clinical information can further improve record keeping. Further study is recommended with the aim to improve storage and retrieval of clinical information in the future.

Financial Disclosure:

None