NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) has launched a mobile app to simplify the process of discharging hospital patients for ongoing care.
It has begun a two-week pilot of the Discharge to Assess (D2A) App with a pipeline for full deployment and plans to rapidly make changes based on feedback.
Leonardo Tantari, chief digital information officer for the ICB and Leeds City Council, said he has developed the app with Power Platform developer Peter Withington and that it is being trialled by the city’s transfer of care hub.
“D2A is an approach that aims to streamline the discharge process for patients in a healthcare setting, typically in the context of hospital care,” he said.
“The main objective is to ensure that patients are discharged from the hospital as soon as they are medically stable and their ongoing care can be provided in a more suitable environment, such as their own home (Home First) or a community based care setting.”
Record and communicate
The app enables staff working in the transfer of care hub to record information relating to a patients discharge and communicate this with the appropriate receiving service, such as adult social care teams.
Among the benefits claimed are that it can improve patient assessment and reporting of features such as the number of failed discharges and how long a patient spends in each, more detailed care planning and better communications between healthcare professionals and social works.
There are plans to extend the pilot to pathway services over the next few weeks, and for data collected by the app to be used by the local office of data analytics team.
