Case study
Return on Investment case for waitlist automation from MBI Health
Introduction
Southampton’s original objective was to shine a light on how administrative functions within the organisation play a critical part in ensuring patient safety, and how innovation in these areas can provide a huge uplift in efficiency and can improve the way that we work on a day-to-day basis.
MBI Healthcare Technologies were provided with three key project innovations:
- to create a comprehensive, user-friendly tool which consolidated all validation activities into a single streamlined process and platform
- seamlessly integrate with Southampton’s existing systems, consolidates data together where possible, while also providing the flexibility to make continuous improvements
- Incorporate an NLP feature capable of interpreting patient letters, extracting pertinent information, and then guiding subsequent steps.
Summarising impact of UHS/MBI partnership
36% – efficiency improvement in the first year with LUNA Pathfinder
- Digitised waitlist visualisation, automated role-based personalisation and refined core data model
x6 – productivity boost using ROVA to validate discharges
- Highly developed classifier algorithms ensuring validation activity focussed on optimised worklists
x2 – faster validations with LUNA Surveyor
- Bringing all the evidence together in one intuitive ‘swim lane’ user view to inform decisions
User Feedback
UHS have had strong positive feedback from users and stakeholders across the Trust:
- Joe Teape, COO:
“Incorrectly open pathways is on the Trust risk register as these patient records are inaccurate. LUNA is helping us to mitigate this risk by closing these pathways. It also ensures our operational teams can focus their time on patients who are genuinely under UHS’s care, improving patient safety.”
- Sam, Validation Team Leader:
“LUNA makes it easy and straightforward to validate. My team love it.”
- Dr Matt Stammers, Clinical lead:
“This tool is another step on our digital evolution, and significantly improves our validation capability. Take me to the LUNA!”
Improved Validation for all teams
Although the deployment of the tool was led centrally, LUNA has been used across UHS to conduct validations, and we have successfully trained and deployed it across all Care Groups. Operational feedback from has been positive; in particular LUNA has helped improve access to accurate information which has been valuable for validation.
- Alice, Validator:
“There’s more transparency displayed within LUNA compared to the previous tool. LUNA allows multiple filters and views to be applied, helping us to see the required data faster and with a lot more accuracy.”
Adapting the tool to meet evolving NHS standards
UHS dynamic collaboration has shone when adapting to new NHS data reporting mandates. For instance, when the NHS reduced the target for long waiters from 78 to 65 weeks in April 2023, UHS swiftly coordinated with MBI to incorporate this change into the validation tool.
Similarly, when the NHS issued a directive in December 2022 for Trusts to report additional data for long waiters within a four-week window, UHS faced the challenge of not having this information centrally available in existing UHS systems. In response, UHS worked with MBI to develop a new module that integrates seamlessly with LUNA, enabling data collection in line with the demanding NHS timeline, and which could also be used by other trusts.
- Damien Flood, Central Validation manager:
“We have a really productive, honest, and open working relationship with MBI. We are able to challenge each other, and work collaboratively to develop the product.”
