How Liberty Spark transformed NHS Trust patient care pathways, identifying opportunities to reduce manual work by 50% and establishing the foundation for future digital transformation in just 4 months
The challenge
The Christie NHS Foundation Trust is the largest single site cancer centre in Europe and the first in the UK to be accredited as a comprehensive cancer centre. As one of only three specialist cancer trusts in England, The Christie’s researchers are working on around 900 clinical trials and studies at any one time, and collaborates with major institutions like University of Manchester Cancer, Cancer Research UK and Macmillan.
As a pioneer in both research and care, The Christie had relied on an in-house Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system originally built by clinicians and staff in 2011. While the system had served the Trust well for many years, increasing demands, advances in digital healthcare and the sheer scale of activity meant it was reaching the limits of what it could deliver. The Trust’s leadership recognised the importance of fully understanding their clinical and operational pathways in detail before making decisions about future systems.
Because of the Trust’s scale and complexity, departments had naturally developed different ways of working, with processes that varied across teams. This created an opportunity to build consistency, visibility and efficiency across the organisation. The Christie worked with Differentis, a specialist partner of Netcall, focusing on the implementation of Liberty Spark, our process mapping and improvement solution.
“It’s been fantastic to see how Liberty Spark (with Differentis) has transformed how we work. What used to take months – just to build a couple of workflows – now takes days. We’ve been able to map out all our hospital processes and finally have that big-picture view quicker than we ever imagined. Getting there so fast has been a massive win – it’s made a real difference to how we deliver care.”
Alistair Reid-Pearson
Chief Information Officer, The Christie Foundation NHS Trust
The solution
“The work that we did with Differentis in Liberty Spark is the foundation of transformational change. It will effectively be a cornerstone for the “Future Christie” transformation program.”
Alistair Reid-Pearson
Chief Information Officer, The Christie Foundation NHS Trust
The result
The Christie’s implementation of Liberty Spark shows how comprehensive process mapping can strengthen organisational understanding and establish foundations for digital transformation. The success has already sparked additional use cases in areas such as patient journey mapping, financial process mapping, automation pipeline integration and as a blueprint for new site implementations.
Process mapping has not only solved immediate documentation needs but established The Christie as a model for how healthcare organisations can leverage modern process mapping technology to drive systematic improvement and prepare for future challenges.
“Liberty Spark was critical to the success of this project. Given the scale and complexity of the clinical pathways within a leading cancer trust, we required a tool that would allow us to quickly capture processes in collaborative workshops. Spark enabled us to obtain a significant depth of understanding of the pathways, helping us to deliver our project objectives and crucially value to the client. Its speed, accessibility and collaborative functionality enabled broad staff involvement throughout the trust, capturing invaluable insights while minimising demands on their time.”
Sam Leitch
Business Architect, Differentis
Impact
50% Less Manual Data Entry
potentially saved for Nursing staff
Enterprise-wide Visibility
mapped 70+ processes across 9 major pathways
In Just 4 Months
solved immediate challenge & created strategic roadmap for years of operational improvement
99% Forms Submissions Identified
insight from capture & analysis of 2.8m forms
With Liberty Spark, you can map, visualise and optimise your processes with ease, empowering your team to uncover efficiencies, improve understanding across your organisation and collaborate more effectively.
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