Future Proofing Coding for a Digital Health System
This is an exciting opportunity for businesses and innovative organisations to work with Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board over the next 18 months to find innovative ways to code patient clinical episodes within a hospital setting whilst meeting Government targets and reducing the manual burden on staff.
This is an open competition and will be run as a 2-phase process, with businesses able to bid for development contracts of up to £10k in phase 1 (proof of concept) and up to £100k in phase 2 (demonstrator projects).
THE VISION
• Ensure that we achieve or exceeded coding targets (98% completion rate) which are nationally set.
• Reduce the requirement for staff to manually code, using national standards i.e. ICD10 and OPCS4 codes)
• Automatically update the Patient Administration System used within the Health Board with the relevant codes.
• Automatically submit a pre-validated coding extract to the Welsh Government.
THE PROBLEM SPACE
To overcome the challenges that clinical coding departments face every day when deciphering a Clinicians handwriting to assign codes which are required to detail the medical condition and treatments given to a patient.
When a patient receives treatment, data on their treatment is captured in a variety of formats. The major source of information collected on a patients treatment is currently a physical paper health record, although in the future this will be primarily be in an electronic format.
Following the discharge of care for each patient episode, the patients record is coded to collect data and input into the Patient Administration Systems to support reporting.
As of the 1st April 2016 all Clinical Coding Departments in Wales are required to achieve a 98% completion rate for any given rolling 12 month data period within 1 month, bringing them in line with England. This places additional pressures on the Coding departments within Wales as over 60% were failing to meet previous targets.
In the past 12 months BCU HB have seen an increase approximately 20,0000 episodes that require coding and it is anticipated that the requirement for clinical coding will continue to grow.
In addition coding is undertaken by specialist trained staff that have acquired a skill set over a number of years and can be difficult to retain due to a national shortage of qualified trainers.
For more information on this competition including application form and guidance, FAQ's and event details please Click Here.