Case Study - National Clinical Homecare Association

The problems of dealing with physical documents had been exacerbated by staff working from home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. There had, for example, been some high profile cases of NHS prescriptions going ‘missing’.

The healthcare industry clearly recognised the need to adopt a digital approach to prescription processing, giving operational advantages, regulatory compliance and improvements to patient safety.

Part of its remit is to agree industry-wide positions and solutions that can help to improve clinical homecare for patients. The NCHA had a requirement to harmonise prescription processing for patients in clinical home care. The existing paper-based workflow often led to unnecessary delays in patients receiving appropriate care and medical treatment, especially those patients who were deemed to be ‘at risk’.

The problems of dealing with physical documents had been exacerbated by staff working from home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. There had, for example, been some high profile cases of NHS prescriptions going ‘missing’. The healthcare industry clearly recognised the need to adopt a digital approach to prescription processing, giving operational advantages, regulatory compliance and improvements to patient safety. The NCHA put out a tender for a single, standardised digital solution that would work across all providers and hospitals, with minimum effort from the NHS.

eSign worked with stakeholders involved in the digital prescription project to generate a business value map. The strategic goal was to have a universal and scalable solution that addressed all of the issues relating to paper-based prescription transport. eSign created a functional application to meet the needs of multiple clinical homecare providers, each with differing software and processes.

The solution linked eSign to Microsoft Power Automate, creating a ‘low-code’, cost-effective solution that allowed healthcare providers to easily construct their bespoke digital prescription workflows at a departmental level, whilst having a single solution that could be adopted by the different care providers under the NCHA umbrella. In each case, the Trust made an assessment of the relative risks in relation to Information Governance and Security or similar to reinforce the compliance with NHS data security and privacy requirements.

Whether introducing people to new technology around Microsoft Flow or providing extra support to smaller members of the NCHA, the eSign team is guided by the principles of patience and flexibility todeliver systemic change.