Improving the productivity and efficiency of vascular surgery and radiology multidisciplinary meetings

"The changes made to the process have resulted in a real reduction in the time spent preparing each weekly meeting. As a result of careful and thoughtful improvement cycles, it has been possible to increase the proportion of patients discussed at each meeting by approximately two thirds."

Improving the productivity and efficiency of vascular surgery and radiology multidisciplinary meetings
Gary Dobson, Declan Neeson
BMJ Quality Improvement Reports 2015;4: doi:10.1136/bmjquality.u208416.w3332
Programme

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Home administration of intravenous diuretics to heart failure patients

"Originally a 2-year pilot programme to assess safe and effective ways for specialist nursing teams to administer intravenous (IV) diuretics to people at home or in a day-care setting, preventing hospital admissions and improving patient experience. Without this service patients would be admitted to hospital to receive IV diuretics."

Home administration of intravenous diuretics to heart failure patients: Increasing productivity and improving quality of care
Quality and Productivity case study
British Heart Foundation
June 2015

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Template reports for radiology cancer staging: improving information

"This initiative uses templates to record tumour staging information from magnetic resonance (MR) investigations. The information provided by radiologists to clinicians is improved and standardised, allowing management decisions to be better informed and reducing the need for additional clarification. This initiative is primarily about improving quality, although there are some small productivity savings"

Template reports for radiology cancer staging: improving information to guide treatment decisions
Quality and Productivity case study
Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
July 2015

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Review of Operational Productivity in NHS providers

"This interim report outlines the work that has been carried out by Lord Carter of Coles to review the productivity of NHS hospitals, working with a group of 22 NHS providers.."

Review of Operational Productivity in NHS providers
An independent report for the Department of Health by Lord Carter of Coles
Interim Report
June 2015

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Improving patient flow in pre-operative assessment

"This improvement project sought to decrease waiting times for patients at a pre-operative assessment service at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, and to increase the proportion of patients who were seen on the same day as the decision to operate was made."

Improving patient flow in pre-operative assessment
C Stark, A Gent, L Kirkland
BMJ Quality Improvement Reports 2015;4: doi:10.1136/bmjquality.u201341.w1226

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MediDial cards: a quick win for service improvement

"Through the introduction of our MediDial cards we not only reduced the frequency junior doctors needed to contact the switchboard on a daily basis, but also the length of time spent waiting to speak to an operator. The MediDial cards were also found to be time saving and more useful than the previous intranet based database."

MediDial cards: a quick win for service improvement
Mike Davies, Sonia Panchal
BMJ Quality Improvement Reports 2014;3

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Priorities for the next government

"The next government must ensure that the focus on improving quality of care established in the wake of the Francis report is sustained. It will also need to set in train a transformation of services to meet the needs of patients more effectively."

Priorities for the next government
The King's Fund
September 2014

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Using health worker opinions to assess changes in structural components of quality

"Compared to usual care, managed care was significantly associated with better process in terms of diabetes care, fewer secondary care consultations and lower health care costs. The same trends were seen for protocolized care, however they were not statistically significant."

Resource use and costs of type 2 diabetes patients receiving managed or protocolized primary care: a controlled clinical trial
A van der Heijden, et al.
BMC Health Services Research 2014, 14:280

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Early erythropoietin for preventing red blood cell transfusion in preterm and/or low birth weight infants

"The Cochrane Quality and Productivity topics to help the NHS identify practices that could be significantly reduced or stopped completely, releasing cash and/or resources without negatively affecting the quality of NHS care."

Early erythropoietin for preventing red blood cell transfusion in preterm and/or low birth weight infants

Cochrane Quality and Productivity topics
July 2014

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The NHS productivity challenge

"The question therefore is not whether the NHS will run out of money but when, and how this can be avoided. In a context in which organisations with a history of good performance are struggling to cope, there is every prospect that problems that have so far been found in a small number of providers will become much more common." 

The NHS productivity challenge: experience from the front line
John Appleby, Amy Galea, Richard Murray
The King's Fund
May 2014

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Examining variations in hospital productivity in the NHS

"Our analyses suggest substantial scope for productivity improvement across the English hospital sector. It would be worth focusing attention on those hospitals at the top and bottom of the rankings in order to identify specific drivers of differential productivity in those organisations."

Examining variations in hospital productivity in the English NHS
A Castelli, A Street, R Verzulli, P Ward
The European Journal of Health Economics
February 2014

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The NHS payment system: evolving policy and emerging evidence

"This research report takes a comprehensive look at different approaches to payment and how they function in the English NHS. It then brings together and summarises the available evidence on whether recent payment initiatives have met their goals."

The NHS payment system: evolving policy and emerging evidence
L Marshall, A Charlesworth, J Hurst
Nuffield Trust
February 2014

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QIPP case study: Home administration of intravenous diuretics to heart failure patients

This case study "summarises a two-year pilot programme to assess safe and effective ways for specialist nursing teams to administer intravenous (IV) diuretics to people at home or in a day-care setting preventing hospital admissions and improving patient experience."

Home administration of intravenous diuretics to heart failure patients: Increasing productivity and improving quality of care
British Heart Foundation
December 2013

Read more here.

Effective clinical and financial engagement

"Effective engagement between NHS clinicians and finance professionals has always been important and never more so than now as the NHS seeks to improve the quality of care for patients while becoming more productive and efficient."

Effective clinical and financial engagement: a best practice guide for the NHS
Department of Health
November 2013

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Lessons from Europe: the value of tariff design

"Payment systems are an important policy tool for improving quality and efficiency, but they have limitations."

Lessons from Europe: the value of tariff design
Health Services Research Network
NHS Confederation
October 2013

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Managing financial difficulties in health economies

"This research provides insight into the causes of, and reactions to, financial difficulty and the types of factors that have helped and hindered health economies in addressing deficits."

Managing financial difficulties in health economies: lessons for clinical commissioning groups
N Curry, B Rumbold, R Edwards, S Arora
Nuffield Trust
October 2013

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How to get better value health care for patients

"The available evidence indicates a range of opportunities to make significant recurrent productivity gains across the NHS by 2021 and beyond."

Closing the NHS funding gap: how to get better value health care for patients
Monitor
October 2013

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Leading health care innovation

This is a collaboration of the editors of the Harvard Business Review and the New England Journal of Medicine, providing an eight-week online forum devoted to helping leaders, managers, and others in health care increase value by improving patient outcomes and reducing costs. Find out more here.

NICE QIPP Shared Learning Examples

Two new QIPP Shared Learning Examples have been published on the NICE website:

1. Using quality and productivity to enhance heart failure pathway in primary care
2. Implementing and evaluating training for health visiting teams as part of the UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative Community award

To find out more about submitting a shared learning example visit here.

Exploring the system-wide costs of falls in older people in Torbay

"This paper uses Torbay’s unique patient-level linked data set to explore the cost of the care pathway for older people admitted to hospital as a result of a fall by tracking their care costs in the 12 months before and after their fall."

Exploring the system-wide costs of falls in older people in Torbay
Y Tian, J Thompson, D Buck, L Sonola
The King's Fund
August 2013

Read more here.