Administrators form an integral part of all systems and processes within the NHS, the importance of which is reflected on National Administrative Professionals Day.
At Consultant Connect, we recognise the vital role that admin plays in healthcare, which is why Enhanced Advice & Guidance (A&G) is designed to save healthcare professionals and administrators time by making processes easier.
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Consultant Connect is useful for administrators in Primary Care to:
1. Automatically send a record of clinical A&G to the patient’s record, for areas where patient record integration is switched on*:
The PDF document automatically appears in your practice’s usual document management system, in the same way correspondence from the local trust/hospital is received. Admins can either ‘accept’ or ‘reject’ the PDF document. Accepting the document pushes it into the patient’s record. If the document cannot be reconciled with a patient from the practice, the PDF can be rejected.
Patient record integration ensures a complete record of the advice sought is linked to the correct surgery a patient is registered with.
2. View summary and performance statistics across all specialties for your practice in one place, including volumes of calls, photos, and messages**:
Statistics include the number of calls placed by clinicians at your practice, connection speed, call duration and outcomes reported on connected calls.
3. Access and download call recordings:
All calls are recorded for medico-legal purposes and can be downloaded to your device as an MP3 file. There is no expiry date for call recordings, so staff can go back and listen whenever necessary.
4. View and download photos and close message interactions on behalf of clinicians**:
Admin staff can see all your practice’s open and closed photo and messaging sessions. They can filter photos and messages by the date and time of the cases and reopen them if necessary.
5. Start a new message and/or upload photos to send to relevant specialty teams for advice on behalf of clinicians**:
Simply enter the patient’s NHS number, fill in the proforma information and attach files/photos as needed.
Admin staff are also invaluable for specialty teams in Secondary Care. Access to Consultant Connect allows administrators in a hospital/trust to:
1. View summary and performance statistics across all specialties in your hospital/trust in one place, including calls, photos, and messages**:
View figures including number of calls placed and answered, connection speed, call duration and outcomes reported on connected calls. Data can help understand specialty’s pressure points and see where A&G requests are coming from.
2. Access and download call recordings:
All calls are recorded for medico-legal purposes and can be downloaded to your device as an MP3 file. There is no expiry date for call recordings, so staff can go back and listen whenever necessary.
3. Manage rotas, view, and edit the list of specialists in your hospital/trust answering A&G calls and/or messages, and add clinicians’ annual leave to the rota to ensure they only receive A&G requests when they are available:
Search the entire list of specialists at your trust/hospital or filter by specialty using the dropdown list. New specialists, such as consultants, registrars or nurse specialists, can be added to the rota to minimise unanswered calls.
* Patient record integration is only available to GP practices in England.
** Specialties and services available differ by practice/locality.
Andy Finlay, Improvement Programme Manager, Patient First Improvement Team at North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust carried out some analysis on typical admin time spent to process e-RS Advice & Guidance (A&G) queries vs Consultant Connect A&G:
‘It takes an administrator 8-10 mins on average to process one e-RS A&G, this includes the request with one attachment (previous or current results etc), and the vast majority of referrals have at least one to two attachments. It takes the same administrator zero minutes to process anything about Consultant Connect as they’re not involved in the operational element. They reap the benefits of the tool instead.‘
Please note that only authorised users at a practice/trust/hospital can access PID reports and download them. To find out more or to request access, please contact your NHS area’s Account Manager or email the Consultant Connect team at hello@consultantconnect.org.uk.
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