Outpatients project wins FHRI funding
It comes as no surprise that our amazing staff here at the Royal Perth Bentley Group (RPBG) pulled off an impressive feat at the recent Future Health Research and Innovation (FHRI) Fund Innovation Challenge, with two projects receiving grants.
The Smart Scheduling project, led by Ros Jones from the Strategic Projects Outpatient Reform team, received a whopping $449,931 in FHRI funding to deliver a pilot initiative that seeks to streamline access to outpatient appointments, through the development of a smart scheduling tool that optimises booking review appointments.
This highly collaborative project connects staff from Strategic Projects, Outpatients, Cardiology, Digital Data Innovation (DDI), EMHS’ Planning, Innovation and Commissioning (PIC) unit, Consumer Engagement, and the Innovation teams to deliver tangible change at the coalface of care.
We caught up with Ros recently who shared her excitement at being given the opportunity to lead an innovative project with the potential to improve outpatient services across RPBG.
“With dedicated funds we can support the digital prediction and digital learning solutions we need to support our clinicians and clerks,” Ros smiled, adding the funds would primarily be used to create the required digital resources.
“We have been piloting ‘proof of concept’ dashboards with RPBG Cardiology for about two years and Dr Jon Spiro, along with RPBG Cardiology Clerk Michelle Dunlop, have taken his clinic from 38 per cent of review appointments overdue to only 10 per cent in 12 months.”
Ros said the project will be a “digital learning journey” with three phases planned over the next two years.
“We will be enhancing the current pilot tools we have and collecting feedback and making changes as we go,” she continued.
“We started with a workshop just yesterday, with representation from cardiology clinicians, outpatient clerical, our consumer engagement unit, and our outpatient leaders.
“In the workshop we are going to plan for what we need to provide visibility of the outpatient waitlists for our clinicians, while aiming to automate and digitise the appointment scheduling workflows for our clerks and provide our patients with choice in bookings.”
Ros ended by saying it was the work of a “fantastic, diverse team” that collaborated to get the grant over the line.
“I very much look forward to working with everyone as we embark on this journey over the next two years.”
Look out for our interview with RPBG Occupational Therapist Louise Splatt in next week's edition of In the Loop. Louise is steering the Habit Hack project, the other EMHS initiative that received an FHRI grant.
What is the FHRI Fund Innovation Challenge?
The FHRI Fund Innovation Challenge supports WA innovation capability and capacity building and the development of high-quality innovations that contribute to the Sustainable Health Priority areas related to the Sustainable Health Review (SHR) Final Report.