Interpreting Capacity analysis: the Charts
The Charts view gives you a statistical analysis of theatre and clinic usage on different days of the week. This is how it works, and how you interpret it.
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Waiting time targets – like happiness – are best pursued indirectly
It sounds sensible to book patients in before they breach the target. But in practice it is unfair, unsafe, and keeps waiting times on the brink of failure. There is a better way.
Planning a hospital for constant capacity – a worked example
In principle, we can plan the hospital to smooth out expensive peaks and troughs in capacity. In practice we need to apply some common sense too.
If the NHS had cruise control – the importance of constant capacity
Keeping waiting times close to the brink is a false economy. Make headroom once, and you can run the hospital more cheaply forever.
Modelling complex patient pathways
Clinical pathways don't always run in straight lines. Here is how you can model even quite complex pathways quickly and easily using Gooroo Planner.
Putting operational managers in control of performance
The "exceptions table" sounds innocuous enough. But whoever controls it has the power to transform the management of entire hospitals.
Modelling subspecialties (and sub sub specialties)
Operational managers often like to see their capacity plans at sub specialty level, especially in general surgery and orthopaedics. This is easily done in Gooroo Planner, but here are some things you may need to watch out for. And it's similar for other levels of detail, such as hospital site, commissioner, and procedure based modelling.
Why does the NHS always need extra capacity?
Is the NHS always short of capacity because it's always short of money? Perhaps not. Waiting list initiatives and a reliance on 'extra' suggest that something else is going on.
Modelling follow-up outpatient backlogs
A practical guide to modelling follow-up outpatients (known as "returns" or "repeats" in Scotland) using Gooroo Planner, including waiting times, capacity, and how to model defined courses of treatment.
Winter Planning – No Surprises?
A guest post by Jonathon Fagge, who has been through five winter planning seasons as an NHS Commissioner – three as a Director and two as CEO. He asks two big questions: how could it be done better, and why isn't it?