Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust (BHRUT)

BHRUT faced significant challenges in managing clinical safety assessments for their digital applications. Clinical safety assessments are evaluations conducted to ensure that digital health systems and applications meet safety standards and do not pose risks to patients. These assessments are crucial for ensuring patient safety, complying with NHS digital safety standards, improving communication and resource management, enhancing documentation processes, and fostering continuous learning and improvement. They help identify and mitigate potential hazards, ensure compliance with regulatory standards, streamline documentation, and provide valuable data for continuous improvement.

When Dione Rogers, Deputy Chief Nurse and Chief Nurse Informatics Officer, joined the trust almost 3 years ago, there was no clinical safety team, no hazard logs, and no clinical safety case reports. Manual processes were developed and deployed, but they relied heavily on spreadsheets and emails, leading to inefficiencies and strained relationships with business partners. As Dione Rogers explained,

Cases were taking a long time and a lot of what was holding us up was explaining where we were in the process of signing off documents.

Whilst the clinical safety team did already have a system to manage their Clinical Safety Management processes and hazard logs, the process was manual and took a lot of effort to keep on top of. To address these challenges, BHRUT collaborated with CPS and Microsoft to implement Microsoft Project for the web (now rebranded under Planner). The trust have adoped this solution under the acronym of DASH; Digital Assistant for Safe Healthcare. . This solution was chosen for its compatibility with existing NHS tools like Teams and Outlook, and its ability to provide a centralised platform for project management and delivery, specifically to manage the process around digital clinical safety assessments. Dione Rogers noted,

We decided that a project using [Planner] would be probably the best fit.

The implementation of Microsoft Project for the web / Planner anticipates several benefits for BHRUT:

• Improved Communication: DASH provided open and transparent tracking of not just the project, but its approvals, progression and supporting documentation, reducing the reliance on emails and improving team relationships.
  

  “Anything that can improve communication and relationships in the team, knowing where they can look in one place for that information was the primary reason,” said Dione Rogers.

  DASH also provides a single area for people to see what they’re working on, and the current status of any clinical safety assessment.

• Resource Management: DASH helped in better allocation of roles and resources, linking with Outlook calendars to manage availability.
  

  “We can start to see what resources are available to pick up work,” mentioned Dione.

• Prioritisation and Analytics: The introduction of a criteria matrix for prioritising projects and the use of data analytics to learn from DASH’s data were significant improvements.
  

  “We’re testing a scoring system to demonstrate and ensure transparency about project prioritisation. This is a new concept for us. Additionally, we’re focusing on data and analytics to continuously improve. We aim to identify common hazards and streamline processes, ensuring we focus on the right tasks. I’m very data-driven, so learning and improvement using the system are crucial.” stated Dione.

It’s early days in the embedding of the new toolset, but the qualitative feedback from BHRUT staff highlights the positive impact of DASH. Rosalia Padron Pol, Digital Clinical Safety Officer, emphasised the importance of visibility and resource allocation, making it a key request in the new tool.

The customer experience has been overwhelmingly positive. Dione Rogers praised the collaborative approach taken by CPS and Microsoft, saying,

This experience where we were able to articulate the problem we were trying to solve and actually have people understand that and be able to co-build DASH with us was amazing.

If your organisation is facing similar challenges in managing clinical safety or other complex projects, consider partnering with CPS and Microsoft to implement a tailored solution that meets your needs.

DASH, now available as an accelerator from CPS, enables NHS organisations to swiftly implement the BHRUT approach. The Clinical Safety accelerator strengthens or builds upon current processes, offering pre-configured tracked and documented approvals, quick-start reporting, control log tracking, hazard and incident management, request management, and prioritisation.