Individual Advances Report: Management Strategies for NHS Efficiency

This report examines various management strategies aimed at enhancing the efficiency of the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom. It focuses on the implementation and impact of electronic information services, including their role in increasing the speed of services, improving the efficiency of healthcare professionals, and enhancing diagnosis and treatment outcomes. The report also explores the reduction in costs for both patients and the NHS through technological advancements. Furthermore, it addresses the potential drawbacks of online record systems, particularly data protection issues and the importance of safeguarding patient information. The operational problems faced by NHS, and the impact on patient care are also discussed, providing a comprehensive overview of the challenges and opportunities in improving healthcare delivery within the NHS framework.

Individual Advances
Report

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Management Strategies that could improve the efficiency of NHS.......................................1
Speed of Services...................................................................................................................1
Efficiency of Health Care Professionals.................................................................................2
Effect on Diagnosis and Treatment Outcomes ......................................................................3
Research and diagnosis of medical conditions.......................................................................3
Reduction in costs to both patients and the NHS...................................................................4
Potential Drawbacks of On-line-record..................................................................................4
Data Protection Issue..............................................................................................................5
Protecting patients from improper use of their data...............................................................5
Patients’ access and misunderstanding of their medical conditions.......................................6
Records availability................................................................................................................1
Operational problems faced by NHS. ....................................................................................2
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
To achieve goal and objective of an organisation's, management has to formulate an
effective strategic plan. This report is consist of management strategies that could improve the
efficiency of National Health Service in United Kingdom. Innovation electronic information
services will lead to increase in speed of services and reduce cost to organisation (Ashabaniand
Mohamed, 2014). The potential drawback of data recording online will also be covered in the
report, how data handle and accessible through online and what are the potential threats of it. The
operational problems facing at NHS such as reasons for IT failure and operational activity
models will also be discussed.
Management Strategies that could improve the efficiency of NHS
Management strategies involves the making and initiating of the major goals taken by an
organisation's top management (Strategic management, 2017). An effective management
strategy can lead to overall development and growth of business organisation in long run. Nation
health Service in United Kingdom has developed many management strategies to improve its
efficiency. For Example development in electronic information for fiscal, social, economical
scientific or technical data geared to support NHS operations, creation of on-line-records of
employees where each detail acquired by NHS of employees are uploaded on line through
human resource information system so that top management can access the detail by one click
(Hood and Sugar, 2015). Availability of electronic information help to solve many of the
problems related to effectiveness and efficiency of treatments in NHS. It will help in elimination
of various issues faced by NHS such lack of pace in services, inadequacy of health care
professionals, etc. It should be part of management strategies to develop electronic information
to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the organisation. Below are the points which
covers the area where electronic information help to solve different kind of problems (Chu,
Pandya, and Hunink, 2016).
Speed of Services
Electronic information enables NHS to increase the speed of services provided to patients
as well as employees. Imagine this scenario, a patient arrives at hospital for an appointment or an
emergency, or is admitted for treatment and the clinical team can see their medical record in its
entirety, wherever and whenever they need to(Allwood, 2014.). Strategies made by management
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at NHS to develop the electronic information measures to eliminate the time consuming paper
based recording system to computerized data recording system. NHS introduced electronic
patient record system which help NHS to store and retrieve detailed patient information to be
used by doctors. It includes patient's hospitalization, over time and across care setting. This
increases the effectiveness and efficiency of treatments in NHS. For example, NHS has
introduced patient portal, MyChart, which will provide patients secure access to parts of the
medical reports and records, so they can be more in control of their health information. The
contact detail of each health care professionals are provided on the website of NHS (Lewis,
Williams and Rickard, 2015). Not only patients but employees are also benefited by electronic
information technologies as they can link and retrieve information through online employee
portals about leaves, bonuses, fringe benefits, etc. easily. Thus, electronic information increases
the speed of services of treatments in NHS.
Efficiency of Health Care Professionals
Efficiency of health care professionals has been improved from the time when electronic
information services introduced. Health care professionals. Unified hand held and mobile
devices were provided to health care professionals to document information in the electronic
patient record in real time patient's bedside. It is a part of management strategy to provide
healthcare professionals with such instruments which can help them to treat their patients more
effectively (Raman, Moorthy and Kitsios, 2013). At NHS this has enables the health providers to
spend more quality time with patients, hence increasing the efficiency in their treatments. As one
of the UK’s highest rated trusts for the effective use of technology in providing high-quality
patient care, not only will NHS continue to focus on using technology to deliver further
improvements for their patients, but also as a global digital epitome hospital NHS is committed
to sharing their learning with others and helping the NHS embrace its digital future. Many
applications for mobile and smartphones have been developed by NHS which provided a strong
guideline for treatments of patients by health care professionals. These applications help to reach
out the patient problem quickly and help health providers to treat them properly and effectively.
For example, Out patients now only come in hospital if it's necessary as health care professionals
can review their patients notes and x-rays virtually through electronic applications. In
orthopaedics this has freed up 4500 appointments a year (Chu, Pandya, and Hunink, 2016.).
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Patients attending the surgical pre-assessment clinic complete their initial documentation on
tablets, meaning this department now sees approximately 20% more patient than before.
Effect on Diagnosis and Treatment Outcomes
Electronic information lays an effective effect on diagnosis as the speed of diagnosis
increase rapidly and patient need not have to wait for long to get feedback of his medical report.
There was a great deal of consistency between diagnosis and treatment outcome. The report
shows the problem form which the patient is suffering from and immediate vaccination and
treatment provided by health care professionals of NHS (Castaings, Lhomme, and Bouscayrol,
2016). Patients also provided the diagnosis report so that they able to understand their
conditions; as patients want to know what is likely to happen to them, and what’s happened
before to people in the same situation. Patients at NHS recognised that there was a huge
opportunity to improve health, as it providing information in a better, more sophisticated way so
healthcare professionals can do what they do best – deliver excellent care to patients. NHS
strategy is to develop an integrated and effective diagnosis system that can help in diagnosis of
patient condition effectively and efficiently. The growth of technology leads to a great effect in
rise of diagnosis equipments. For Example, special laboratory set up for immediate diagnosis of
virus and bacteria which can harmfull for human body has been set at NHS. NHS choices
provides comprehensive and trusted diagnosis on health conditions and treatments and receives
more than 1.5 millions visit per day. NHS is upgrading the site NHS.uk, which will not only
offer more personalised advice and information, but also help patients to book appointment and
access there previous health records and can get an efficient and effective treatment
(Bhattacharya, 2014).
Research and diagnosis of medical conditions
NHS electronic patient record is vital to better patient care. It has helped NHS to increase
quality and safety, minimize imitations and obliterate unnecessary delays. Inpatients do not have
to stay in hospital for longer than necessary as the time taken for research and diagnosis of
patients has been reduced because of introduction of electronic information and preparation of
discharge medications has been halved. For Example, every inpatient has a barcoded wristband,
which links directly to the EPR, and allergy-related prescribing alerts in the system have reduced
adverse medication reactions, saving around 2,500 inpatient bed days per year. Development of
new technologies helps NHS to conduct research and diagnosis of a patient rapidly. As the report
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will soon be created after research and diagnosis of patients (Camilleri and Stanghellini, 2013).
Executive and clinical leaders believed that comprehensive method of research and diagnosis of
medical condition of patient would improve health care, quality, consistency and patient safety.
At NHS adopting a comprehensive use of technologies was a strategic plan to integrate inpatients
and outpatients care and provide a continuum of coordinated services across their system.
Reduction in costs to both patients and the NHS
The development of technologies and electronic information services helping National
Health Service (NHS) reduction in cost for both patients and the organisation. NHS ranks as the
best value healthcare system in the world, by improving in technologies and quality NHS
succeeded in reducing the additional costs, which was previously considered as a deficit to
organisation. Regarding patients, by innovating Electronic Patient Record system and
modernization of NHS networking and computing infrastructure, more than millions of patients
were able to get treatments without going to hospital. Management has to made specific
strategies to eradicate heavy costs regarding treatment of patient and improve technologies which
can benefits both the patients and organisation (Dababat, Imren and Mekete, 2015). The NHS
digital applications' library which includes trusted apps to help people manage and improve their
own health. Earlier where patient pays various kinds of fees for there treatments, now they only
have to pay little amount for the app and can get treated virtually. For Example, the library will
include apps approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, so that patient
who connect to NHS system can be provide with better and more effective advice but also help
healthcare professionals to monitor health in real time. This will save the cost for both patient
and NHS at large.
Potential Drawbacks of On-line-record
Medical documents are used to records patient care and for financial, legal, research and
quality improvement purpose. Though it sounds convenient to transform from paper work to
computerized method of recording data, it comes with many potential drawback which can harm
the organisation and the person's personal information simultaneously (Hood, and Sugar, 2015).
Issues such as data protection, protecting patients from improper use of data, etc. Given below
are the potential drawback of online record of data at NHS can be recognised.
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Data Protection Issue
NHS UK needs to collect personal information about people with whom it deals in order
to carry out its business and provide its services. Such people include patients, employees
(present, past and prospective), suppliers and other business contacts. The information includes
name, address, email address, data of birth, private and confidential information, sensitive
information. The personal information must be dealt with properly to ensure compliance with the
Data Protection Act 1998 (the Act). But many times due to fault in server, attacks of malware or
other technology related problem lead to severe harm of personal information can be faced by
NHS. The major drawback which comes with data is the leaking of vital information through
faults in online servers of NHS. This is done either by employees or worker who have rights to
access the records uploaded on NHS database (D'alto and Diller, 2014). Eventually results in
providing damage to personal information. For Example, due to lack of information, an
employee at NHS mistakenly sends information of another patient, which can results in wrong
treatment of the particular patient. This will result in damage of image and reputation of the
NHS.
The core of any digital initiative is data. Aggressive expansion in the volume of patient
data should lead to higher quality analysis and a database that is of ever-increasing value. It is
therefore no surprise that the NHS views its data as an asset, essential to the treatment of
patients, important as a resource for research and increasingly important as a potential source of
commercial licensing revenue (Pal, Lee and Narod, 2014.). The technology changes, which
initiated the shape of data, also enhanced data analysis tool which threaten the effectiveness of
many data anonymisation protocols, so destroying public confidence in this type of initiative.
This create the tension between the data use and misuse, as it designed to make NHS patient data
available to certain approved enterprises. Due to poorly publicised patient opt-out system and the
eradication of certain identifiers, which should have made the data unidentified (Neilsen. and
Hogue, 2014). Data protection is very essential for an organisation as it contains personal and
organisational information of patients, employees and top level authorities of an organisation.
Protecting patients from improper use of their data
Another potential drawback of online records faced by NHS is protecting patients from
improper use of their data. On one hand online record of data help an organisation for making
work smooth and effective, but on the other hand management responsibility increases towards
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protecting people from improper use of their data. Sources have been identified that NHS patient
data has been viewed and used by outside agencies. This threatens the vital information of
patients as it can lead to damage of patient personal information (Bhattacharya, 2014.). Though
online records of data is very protective source as it can only be accessible by the authorities who
are responsible for collection of data. Risk can never be wholly eradicated but patient whose data
is lost or irresponsibly used should be able to claim compensation through the NHS Litigation
Authority and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) should maintain a compulsory public record
of known data breaches, as it requires by law in the UK (Groves and Knopman, 2013,). The
introduction of electronic health records is transforming the NHS by giving patients and
healthcare professionals instant access to their medical history, improving the safety of care,
reducing errors and boosting medical research.
Experience of many patients shows that there is much to be done by NHS to walk on the
path of paperless future and deliver the benefits from electronic health record to patients.
Protecting patients from improper use of their data is a part of management strategies where
management applied some measures so that no one can view NHS data outside of its premises
(Ashabani and Mohamed, 2014). For example, if any unauthorised person access the data of
personal information of patient for his own personal or beneficial needs than it will come under
improper use of patient data. NHS have installed various security measures to avoid these kind of
activities. Also cloud computing has been installed and protected with high security so that only
authorized person can be able to access the information of patient. By doing this NHS is moving
forward to a new paperless future in the economy (Dababat, Imren, and Mekete, 2015.). The
improper use of data can lead to the loss of privacy of patients which comes under criminal
offense. Giving patient a right to access the electronic records is essential to make sure that the
records are up to date and accurate and to allow them to book appointments, order prescriptions
and become more engaged in their case. Thus protecting patients from improper use of their data
is an essential for organisation. The management has to formulate those strategies which can
minimise the issue at NHS.
Patients’ access and misunderstanding of their medical conditions
The drawback of online records is the misunderstanding of medical reports by patients.
Patients who have lack of knowledge in health literacy are at risk for error and poor health
outcomes. They have trouble understanding medication instructions, appointment reminder
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forms, informed consent, discharge instructions, and health education materials. This leads to
lack of obedience to medication administration, missed primary care appointments, laboratory
tests, and referral appointments; and lack of proper health self-management (Lewis, Williams
and Rickard, 2015). Such actions may appear to be non-compliance but may instead be the result
of limited health literacy. Patients with limited health literacy often end up back in a healthcare
provider's office with more serious conditions.
Most patient with low literacy are very ashamed of it and therefore have become very
good at hiding it. After accessing the medical reports many patients pre- assumed there problems
and try for treatments in outside, which can lead to many more critical problems. In NHS patient
online access and services offer increased convenience and satisfaction, but it can leads to
misunderstanding and risk to privacy of patients' medical conditions. For example, a patient
suffering from some normal disease access his report and find that he is not serious, but require
medication. The patient than do not bothered to get treatment and ignore it (Allwood, 2014).
After some time that normal suffering become a life threatening issue. So to eliminate this kind
of misunderstanding healthcare providers' must encourage open communication with patients.
For greater clarity and understanding, written materials should be created in a patient-friendly
manner. This means using simple words, short sentences in bulleted format, and lots of white
space. Emphasis should be on what the patient should do; unnecessary information should be
avoided (Hood and Sugar, 2015).
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Records availability
Along with lots of advantages, there are some drawback of online records. Such as
processing charges get increased, everyone would not be able to handling online software
effectively (Six reasons why the NHS National Progamme For IT failed. 2017). Some of the
major drawbacks are following:
 High chances of data loss: In case any small error occurred into the process, it may lead
to the huge data loss. As the medical history is considered as sensitive data of patients,
the retrieval process of the lost data is quite difficult (Allcock and et. al., 2015).
Therefore, it can cause difficult situation of patients. Therefore, the electronic or online
records are not much effective (Six reasons why the NHS National Progamme For IT
failed. 2017).
 Privacy key: Medical reports does not only consists of medical details of patients. It also
contain sensitive information related to their insurance, medical policies and so on. Any
kind of data loss or theft can cause huge consequences for the users (Dayan and et. al.,
2014). This is considered as a biggest reason due to which people does not consider this
service.
 Backup plan is required: While using online record management, user need to maintain
backup of the data and reports (Ham and et. al., 2015). During this process user have to
pay for online data and also maintain its backups. In this situation they do not considers
this services regularly. Some of them do not consider this process effectively.
 User must have effective skills: To handle the process effectively, the users are required
with the skills and abilities for handling their account effectively (Kotiadis, Tako and
Vasilakis, 2014). In case if user is not having much technical knowledge, in that
condition they cannot access their profile. Therefore, it is considered as less user friendly.
 Lack of standard system architecture: Every organisation can have their own software
for maintain records. In such situations patients have to handle different accounts, due to
unavailability of standardised architecture, users will face various challenges (Kotiadis,
Tako and Vasilakis, 2014). Therefore, it is considered as drawback of the process.
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On the basis of above mentioned reasons, there are lots of drawbacks are also associated with the
online records. Users are required with skills and ability to handle their profile (Watson,
Chicksand and Lonsdale, 2013). In case they are not able to manage effectively, it may cause
various problems for them such as data loss, incorrect entry and so on (Parker and et. al., 2014).
Along with this system crash and failure can also arise. It can cause huge loss of data and
recovery process is also vary difficult (Vindrola-Padros and et. al., 2017). Therefore, this process
is not mostly considered by the people. Along with this security issues is also biggest challenge
for this process (Watson, Chicksand and Lonsdale, 2013). It may cause loss of sensitive
information of users including insurance and medical policies related information (Pitt and et. al.,
2016). Therefore, it is not considered as effective process of maintaining records of patients.
Operational problems faced by NHS.
According to the patient associations report, NHS is facing lots of operational problems.
Organisation is not able to provide effective treatment on time. Patients have to wait for at least
18 weeks to get treatments like surgery. There are various reasons that are making direct impact
on the processing (Soper and et. al., 2013). some of the reasons due to which processing and
services are getting affected are like lack of equipment, ineffective work force and unavailability
of advance technological resources (Kotiadis, Tako and Vasilakis, 2014). Along with this various
other reasons are also available, some of them are following:
Operational activity model: Currently, NHS is not provided with specific structure or model.
This is directly influencing their activities. One of the affect is considered as due unavailability
of model, they are not able to effectively distribute resources (Vindrola-Padros and et. al., 2017).
Along with this they are not able to monitor or supervise processing of each department of the
health organisation. Performance of the employee is also decreasing gradually. These all factors
are making direct impact of the services, as they are not able to operate patients and solve their
problems. Victim has to wait for at least 18 weeks for surgeries. The services that are provided
by the company is not able to generate effective results (Watson, Chicksand and Lonsdale,
2013). Therefore, health organisation requires operational activity model to maintain
effectiveness of the processing. Presently, it is making huge impact on the operations of the
company.
Reasons related to the IT failure of NHS national program:
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The reasons of the IT failure of NHS national program is described using following
factors:
 Motives: The top- down processing is not able to produce effective results. The NHS
national program implemented on the top- down approach. In this approach various
political factors are included, due to which effectiveness of the process get decreased
(Abandoned NHS IT system has cost £ 10 billion so far. 2017). All the decisions related
to the medical operational can be understood by the people belonging to that background.
The civil servants are not able to take effective decisions. Therefore, results get affected
to improve this organisation should consider bottom-up approach. (Abandoned NHS IT
system has cost £ 10 billion so far. 2017).
 Buy-in: Another failure reason is ineffective strategies and poor planning. Most of the
implemented plans are not able to generate effective results. Some of the projects are
successful but not able to generate expected outcomes (Six reasons why the NHS
National Progamme For IT failed. 2017). All the operations are implemented by
considering business and profit factors. Instead of considering profitability, planning
should be done by analysis the requirements of patients. Pricing should be also affordable
for every group.
 Speed: The health organisation is organising contracts for developing innovative and
effective process. The contrasts are provided to the agencies without analysing their
performance and previous work (Kotiadis, Tako and Vasilakis, 2014). During this
process scope of the project is also not clear to the developer. Therefore, the processing
of the contract is ineffective and results are not able to generate effective results. This is
considered as a major factor of the failure of NHS national program.
 Contracting speed: The time limit is not provided to the contractors. Therefore,
negotiation in the contract is not allowed. Therefore, they considered payment provision.
In this certain amount of money will be reduced after every deadline (Parker and et. al.,
2014). It helps the service provider in getting their product, during this process lots of
risk is considered by the company regarding the payment and process (Kotiadis, Tako
and Vasilakis, 2014).
 Multi sourcing: Innovative and creative structures are introduced for maintaining the
multi sourcing the series of work effectively (Soper and et. al., 2013). For this various
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