1. Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Cover UK TAS
Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Delivering Digital Innovation
24th May 2018
Private and commercially sensitive

2. Introduction to Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
418,872 patients treated a year
Barnsley Hospital is a 500 bed hospital built in the 1970’s and serves a population of over a quarter of a million people in the Barnsley area.
We provide a range of services, including:
Emergency department services
Outpatient clinics
Inpatient services
Maternity
Children’s services
Specialised services
Cancer and surgical services
283,659 patients were seen in clinic
61,000 patients were care for in the hospital

3. The Objectives
Build-in confidence that patients are receiving important communications from their hospital
Digitise communication touch points through the patient pathway to improve patient experience
Provide ease and convenience for patients to access their appointment details
Improve patient accessibility
Deliver efficiency and cost savings

4. Digitise patient communications within the booking process

5. May Dashboard

6. Patient Portal Interaction – Age Demographic
Assumed opt-in invitation drives optimum open rates. Age group 30 – 60 delivers patient portal interaction of 60% plus.

7. Patient Portal Interaction – Patient Feedback
“Love the portal, it is definitely the way communication should be going”
They still needed to show their employer proof of the appointment to get time off work to attend – some had printed, but some ed it to their line manager
One patient had accessed the portal for their mother and used the Browsealoud translation option. This allowed their mother to read her own appointment letter for the first time. They are now ’training’ their mum to use a smartphone so she could do it all herself in the future!
A few patients acknowledged that it was a more cost effective way to communicate with patients and the money could be better directed to care

8. Staff feedback – ‘they love it!’
More efficient use of staff time and increased job satisfaction
‘The introduction of Portal has freed up more time! We no longer have to print lots of letters, put them in envelopes and take them down to the post room, which was very time consuming. 
We can concentrate more on doing ASI checks and filling slots etc. It would be even better if we can get it to 4 days as been mentioned instead of 8 as we get a lot of clinics at short notice and ringing patients at short notice is hard to fill clinics.’
‘It is much more time effective when booking appointments and saves time by not having to keep getting up to the printer and folding letters. It gives us more time to concentrate on getting other more important duties completed.’

9. The Results

10. DNA Reductions

11. Digital Letter Return on Investment
48% Saving =

12. More than financial benefits – efficiencies across the service
Trackable Communications: digital receipt that the patient has opened the letter – key Trust objective achieved
Streamlined Trust letter templates from 317 to just 72!
Greater patient insight – e.g. 10% of patient mobile data is out of date
Instant letter delivery: giving patients as much time as possible to arrange time off work, child minding etc. before the appointment
Improved patient experience: patients receive hospital communications by their preference and with the ability to convert content in to 98 different languages and have it read out aloud!

13. Questions