Mapping Greener HealthcareMapping Greener Healthcare

Project Description

Background: There are targets for the time of referral to treatment (RTT) of new patients referred into the hospital eye service. At the moment with no set government targets for follow up of patients, there is little data available to monitor the situation. This type of information would be useful to plan and implement solutions for timely follow up of patients and minimise adverse clinical outcomes.

Approach: This project conducted an audit to ascertain the delays in ophthalmic follow up appointments. In the audit, 174 patients were included. It was found that delays from intended monitoring intervals were on average 1.2-1.3 months.

Intended Benefits

Patient outcomes: As patients with chronic eye diseases require regular monitoring, if there is a lack of clinical capacity and delayed follow up, they are at risk of significant ocular morbidity, even visual loss.

Environmental, Financial, Social: Delays in monitoring are assumed to have negative environmental, financial, and social impacts. If a patient experiences delays in follow up appointments, their condition could worsen, requiring more medical attention and incurring more costs. The patient experience will be negatively impacted as well.

Key Aspects of the Project

This project focused on establishing an understanding of the patient experience in monitoring and referral to treatment.