Lisa Ward

Chief Nursing Information Officer,
County Durham and Darlington NHS FT

Lisa was instrumental in the development of the Health Call Digital Care Home solution. The project sought to link care homes so they could provide high quality digital referrals to community nursing teams who work for County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust.

Lisa provided excellent advice on the clinical best practice and shaped the design of the service – which saves significant time for nursing staff at the trust and improves the experience of patients living in care homes who can receive the right treatment at the right place.

Lisa helped shape the service by changing it from the MIST model to SBAR. Her clinical expertise also meant that we built the NEWS2 score into the service. This facilitates how nursing teams prioritise care home residents. The service is available across the whole of the county which covers a large rural area.

Prior to the digital referral service, nursing teams would travel around the region visiting are home residents. Now care home staff are trained in taking observations. They complete the online form which then populates the patient’s record in SystmOne.

Other material:
Lisa’s contribution to this project is the reason it’s been so successful. She facilitated getting the right people involved and shaped the digital service around the needs of primarily the patients – who now are not inappropriately referred to hospital, but also means that care is directed at those most in need.

Following an initial evaluation of the service in County Durham, research found that it reduced inappropriate admissions by 3.4 per care home per month. This also translated to a saving for the health and care sector of £8millon.

Further reading:
www.nhshealthcall.co.uk/case-study-digital-care-homes-in-county-durham/