Healthcare staff at City Health Care Partnership CIC (CHCP CIC) will be able to manage patient care more effectively across multiple community sites, following an implementation of a patient flow management solution (PFM) developed by Cayder. With patients due to experience improvements in their care pathway, including more contact time with health care professionals, Cayder PFM is supporting the Partnership's aims to deliver better, safer patient-centred joined-up, pro-active care services.

Following the deployment, which is now in the final stages of testing, staff at CHCP CIC will be able to realise the quality and cost benefits associated with the Department of Health's Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) initiatives such as Releasing Time to Care. It will also help to improve the experience for professional staff delivering care, enabling them to spend less time on administration and more time on the patient.

CHCP CIC, which is a Community Interest Company, provides community, primary health and integrated social care services to over half a million local people in Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire, employing around 1,400 staff. The partnership is deploying the Cayder Patient Flow Management solution for its community setting, helping to relieve pressure on the local acute trust by facilitating the speedier discharge of patients into intermediary care.

The Cayder PFM solution will provide CHCP CIC's Intermediate Care and Reablement Care service teams including nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, technicians, and administrators, with an at-a-glance view of the current location and status of all patients or any subset of patients - for example, patients on a particular ward, viewable via an electronic whiteboard. It also supports quick, easy bed management, including real-time information on current bed status, as well as facilitating the quick allocation of beds for referrals and internal transfers. Prior to the deployment, CHCP CIC's employees were dependent on traditional, handwritten whiteboards and their general awareness of wards and bed availability.

Toni Yel, business development manager at CHCP CIC said: "The patient flow management solution is already providing benefits for both our patients and staff in the testing stage. The reduced volume of administration, including regular phone calls to co-ordinate discharge from acute care, means our staff can manage our care services more effectively and efficiently."

The PFM provides a ward-view of patients and bed availability through an intuitive, shallow interface, which allows staff to manage patient information using only a few touches or keystrokes. The solution is simple-to-use and minimal training is required to learn to use the system.

Additional key features of the solution are its fully customisable colour-coding system, allowing users to access comprehensive patient information on one screen.

Toni adds: "The ward view lets us see an overview very quickly, whilst giving us the ability to touch on the patient card and access detailed patient data, such as expected date of discharge.

"We've been very impressed with the skilful way Cayder have used colours to represent patient progress and bed availability. We are now able to see not only the number of beds, but also the type of beds and rooms available. This helps us accommodate patients who have specific needs, for example non-weight bearing patients, who require specialist equipment such as walking aids.

"It's been a pleasure to work with Cayder. They have been very flexible in accommodating all of our needs, and have gone that extra mile to ensure they have delivered a solution to match our specific requirements. For us, to be able to truly mobilise our staff across our three locations by accessing live data, lets us use our clinical systems to their full potential."

Stuart Rankin, managing director at Cayder said: "When we were first approached by CHCP CIC, we could instantly see how our software could help their staff coordinate and integrate care across their different locations. Our passion is driven by helping to deliver better care and more efficient services, by transforming the daily routine of staff. We aim to minimise administration effort so healthcare professionals can focus on caring for the patient."