Phlebotomy Patient Booking Service (PBS)
Putting patients at the heart of phlebotomy booking services.
WASP Software has partnered with Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WHH) to transform the service they offer to GPs and patients for phlebotomy appointments by deploying two key innovative technologies that makes the whole process paperless.
The new services include an online scheduling and patient booking solution that allows patients to book phlebotomy appointments at a time and location that suits them and an app that enables the use of barcoded blood collection tubes, minimising errors relating to labelling.
The entire process has been transferred online, incorporating GP ordering, patient engagement, scheduling and booking, clinic management and sample collection. This has the added advantage of providing accurate data/information relating to order status, capacity management and activity, including DNA management.
The design objectives:
• Improve online GP Ordering to ensure there was no need for the practice to print order forms for patients
• Ensure a patient was no longer required to bring any paperwork to clinic
• Communicate by SMS Text/email with patients to signpost them to the phlebotomy booking service
• Provide scheduling functionality to allow patients and the Trust call centre to book appointments
• Link order with booking service to only offer appropriate appointment dates/times
• Ensure only patients with active GP orders can book an appointment
• Allow patients to manage their bookings including cancel and cancel and rebook options
• Send patients a reminder of their impending appointment
• Manage the clinic through an “Expected Patient List” and patient call functionality
• Associate the order with pre-labelled tubes to reduce labelling and margin for error.
How it works:
Benefits
• Completely paperless and does not rely on patients having and retaining a GP paper order
• Manages the patient booking process, including sending reminders to patients who have not yet booked their appointment
• Does not rely on patients creating an account, rather provides them to a simple ‘Digital Token’ to link to the online service
• Identifies all services in the local area where they can book an appointment with available dates
• Creates a clinic list for phlebotomists and runs a ‘Patient Call Screen’ in the clinic
• Confirms to the patient that their samples have arrived at the lab.
• Service is able to proactively monitor demand, review orders with/without bookings and react by allocating resources to areas of most demand
• Automatic management of DNA process to ensure GP is informed to enable them to follow up
• Significant increase in patient and GP satisfaction
• Other benefits linked to the new phlebotomy booking process include sustainability improvements, reduced call centre demand and sample quality improvement.