Skip to main content
Kent Academic Repository

Directing specialist care through email admission alerting

Farmer, Chris K., Wheeler, Toby, Bedford, Michael, Webb, Michelle, Farr, Marc, Morris, Steve (2015) Directing specialist care through email admission alerting. Future Hospital Journal, 2 (1). pp. 34-37. ISSN 2055-3323. E-ISSN 2055-3331. (doi:10.7861/futurehosp.15.011) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:52919)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.7861/futurehosp.15.011

Abstract

Unscheduled care is complex, particularly because many patients have multiple long term medical conditions. It is difficult to ensure the appropriate care is delivered by specialist services to patients in a timely manner. Lack of specialist input may impact on patient safety and adversely affect outcomes. We describe an automated email alerting system which was developed as result of a clinical incident. Using free software and minimal computing resources an automated email alerting system was developed. The system identified patient admissions, compared them against patient cohorts and created alerts. It used only around 1,000 lines of Java7 code combined with free software and secure NHS mail accounts. The system currently sends alerts to many different teams at our hospital. The patient population includes 6,047 patients on one of our 10 monitored lists or special registers. From May to June 2013 the system alerted to 863 monitored patient admissions in 2,158 separate messages. This system has been adopted across multiple specialties, has been well received and has had a direct impact on patient care. Not only is this system efficient and effective, but importantly can be implemented with low cost and complexity and is hence easily reproducible across the NHS.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.7861/futurehosp.15.011
Uncontrolled keywords: patient safety; alerting; information systems; NHS.net.
Subjects: R Medicine > RC Internal medicine
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research > Centre for Health Services Studies
Depositing User: Christopher Farmer
Date Deposited: 08 Dec 2015 12:40 UTC
Last Modified: 17 Aug 2022 10:59 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/52919 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

  • Depositors only (login required):

Total unique views for this document in KAR since July 2020. For more details click on the image.