This NHS Foundation Trust has faced a historical series of challenges in delivering a safe, secure and clinically relevant emergency department (ED) software system.

Their current objective is to provide a real-time, updated single patient view whilst reducing data silos and improving clinical IT interoperability across all emergency care stakeholders. The current product acquisition and project deployment and management processes are timed to coincide with a new ED department opening in 2017. Additionally, the trust sought to enhance clinical engagement and buy-in through an emergency care transformation programme and hence reduce clinical fatigue with IT systems.

As a part of the aforementioned objectives, this NHS Trust sought the expertise required to analyse the vendor options for ED transformation, to create a robust Output Based Specification (OBS) and to project manage the transformation up to the new department opening. Critical issues surrounding the project were culture transformation, stakeholder alignment, cost-benefit analysis and clinical engagement.

AbedGraham was selected with a partner consulting firm (specialising in technical project management) to provide clinical and strategic oversight. Through this paired approach, the robustness of the consultative effort was markedly more holistic in nature, streamlined and value adding than previous iterations. AbedGraham’s role in this process to date has been to provide clinical and strategic consulting supporting:

• Stakeholder mapping and interviews

• Clinical evaluation of prospective IT vendors

• The creation of a robust clinical technology specification

• High-level engagement of clinical stakeholders from primary and secondary care through to board level clinical staff