Unifying and Streamlining the Trauma Pathways Across the Entire Lincolnshire Region

Image created by Rudy Chidiac. © Open Medical 2024. All Rights Reserved

Lincolnshire is one of England's most sparsely populated counties, with 751,200 residents spread across 5,921 square kilometers.

It is predominantly rural with no motorways, which creates fundamental difficulties in the provision of healthcare services, making cross-organisational workflows that improve collaboration and coordination crucial.

The struggle with fragmented workflows

United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust (ULH) manages two main trauma units, which handle between 1,200 and 1,500 referrals each month from seven virtual fracture clinics (VFCs) scattered across Lincolnshire.

In the past, these referrals came in through a mix of phone calls, emails, and even faxes—none of which were standardised. Trauma lists were managed manually using outdated methods like whiteboards and paper, with no timestamps, patient statuses, or clear tracking.

This disjointed approach made it difficult to manage caseloads and follow patients through their care journey. Processing referral information and gathering meaningful data was time-consuming, and the lack of communication and visibility across sites only added to the challenge.

A transformative digital solution

To overcome these issues, ULH set out to unify and simplify their orthopaedic trauma workflows. Their goal was to improve data quality, boost security, and enhance collaboration across the region.

To achieve their progressive vision, they procured PathpointⓇ eTrauma, our cloud-based, end-to-end platform designed to optimise cross-organisation trauma coordination.

Open Medical employed a collaborative approach to ensure the solution was tailored to the specific clinical workflows, working closely with clinical leads like Mr. Kulandaivel Sakthivel, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon and Divisional Clinical Director at ULH, and Mr. Thomas Cheung, Clinical Director for Urgent and Emergency Care at Lincolnshire Community Health Services (LCHS). Together, they ensured eTrauma addressed the trust’s unique challenges.

“I have worked at different LCHS sites, each had its own legacy referral pathways to Fracture Clinic. eTrauma provided consistency across all sites as well as improved accountability and governance of the referral process. This is the cornerstone to developing a beautiful collaboration between UTCs and the T&O team. The data from eTrauma will be invaluable to streamlining the process and providing evidenced feedback to both the Orthopaedic Consultants and UTC ACPs.”

Mr. Thomas Cheung, Clinical Director UEC at LCHS.

Streamlined referral management

With eTrauma, referrals from VFCs are now submitted through a centralised system with standardised templates, mandatory fields, and integration with the Patient Admission System (PAS). This means clinicians have all the key information they need in one place, making referral management faster and easier.

The results speak for themselves: ULH processed 99.7% of over 33,700 referrals within the required 72-hour window. On top of that, the average time to assess a referral was just 10.7 hours, allowing the trust to maintain stable admission rates even as referrals increased.

Real-time overview

The platform also includes an automated trauma board that tracks scheduled, unscheduled, and pending patients in real time. There are tags to highlight each patient’s status, helping clinical teams monitor and prioritise care at a glance.

This functionality, combined with optimised referrals, enabled the trust to maintain efficient referral-to-theatre times, with inpatients receiving surgery within a median of 1 day and outpatients within 3 days.

Data-driven data

eTrauma captures high-quality, SNOMED CT-coded clinical data at the point of entry, which is displayed on an intuitive dashboard. This allows ULH to access granular care metrics that can be used for service planning and decision-making.

Unparalleled visibility

As a cloud-based platform, eTrauma ensures secure, regulated access for multidisciplinary teams, allowing them to view relevant information anytime, anywhere. This end-to-end visibility of the patient journey—across geographically dispersed sites and sub-specialty teams—has revolutionised collaboration and resource management in the trust.

A more connected future

By embracing Pathpoint eTrauma, ULH has transformed how trauma care is delivered across Lincolnshire. From consistent referral processes to real-time tracking and improved data insights, the platform has not only streamlined workflows but also brought teams closer together, despite the challenges of distance and geography.

It’s a powerful example of how digital solutions can drive meaningful change in healthcare, even in the most rural and fragmented settings.