A Clinical Benchmark for Healthcare
"It gives uniformity between different disciplines that are looking after one patient"
Dr Nick Jenkins
Consultant A&E, Nevill Hall Hospital
Patient safety is a critical issue for healthcare delivery.
What is needed is an evidence-based benchmark for clinical processes that supports the configuration of services, local commissioning and clinical practice across care settings.
Since 2004, the UK National Audit Office, the US Institute of Medicine and the Australian Government have produced reports showing that, on average, healthcare is unintentionally harming one in ten patients.
The causes identified include adverse reactions due to drug-drug interactions, inappropriate prescribing, unnecessary tests and procedures, and poor communications across care settings. Patient safety incidents cost the NHS an estimated £2bn per annum in extra bed days alone. The cost of settling neglience claims in 2003-2004 was £423m, with provision for outstanding clinical neglience claims in excess of £2bn.
A clinical benchmark for healthcare has the potential to:
- enhance patient safety through on the job knowledge support for trainees and locum staff
- minimise litigation risk through reducing variation in patient treatment across the care settings
- lower the cost of healthcare delivery by appropriate service configuration and commissioning, eg. by moving services from secondary to primary care
- minimise risks of inappropriate referrals by defining referral points and criteria
- reduce errors due to poor communication by supporting effective multidisciplinary teamwork and knowledge transfer
- lowering cost of local clinical governance by offering a customisable starting point for clinical best practice
Developed by clinicians and kept up to date with quality certified evidence, the Map of Medicine provides both distilled best practice and a visual framework for clinical knowledge that can be customised to meet local needs.
The Map of Medicine offers 387 evidence based clinical pathways (1500 individual flowcharts) that are ready to be implemented as one package. The pathways:
- represent the complete patient journey and span all care settings
- cover all major areas of medicine
- are regularly updated
- are simple to disseminate
Additionally, the system can be integrated into electronic patient record and telecommunication platforms.
Managers, administrators and planners can use the Map of Medicine to develop scenarios based on approved care pathways.
Integrating pathways and operational data helps development of treatment based financial and operational plans.
The Map of Medicine serves as a single knowledge source bringing together local, national and international information sources.Your local administrative and related management data can be seamlessly added to the clinical pathways, creating an end-to-end healthcare knowledge management solution, specifically tailored to your healthcare community.
The Map of Medicine can be used for:
- service design and planning
- supporting quick communication of clinical practice across teams
- a starting point for local clinical governance
Doctors, nurses and allied health professionals practising in primary or secondary care can use the Map as a 'refresher', to support patient choice and for induction of locum or junior staff.
The Map of Medicine offers a clinical benchmark for healthcare.
