Automating Perioperative Care: Achieving a 27% Time Reduction at East Kent Hospital
11th September 2025 , 11:30 to 12:30
Join the latest webinar in our series to hear from
Dr Simon Rang, Consultant Anaesthetist, Lead for Perioperative Medicine, East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust, Co-Clinical Lead for Perioperative Medicine, South East Region, NHS England
Automating Perioperative Care: Achieving a 27% Time Reduction at East Kent Hospital
The perioperative service has adapted to meet evolving needs of an ageing population with increased comorbidities. Many patients with limited access to primary care services are awaiting surgery and encountering medical professionals for the first time in 18+ months at pre-operative assessment (POA) clinics. Understanding the population is crucial for effectively planning and allocating resources to ensure fair access for vulnerable patients.
The introduction of the Graphnet waiting list dashboard in the Perioperative Care Pathway at East Kent University Hospital marked a pivotal development. This platform automates the risk stratification and triage of day surgery patients awaiting POA. The platform integrates surgical waiting list data with the patient-level primary care record, providing clinicians comprehensive primary care data on all patients awaiting surgery. This enables instant identification of high- and low-risk patients awaiting surgery. Overall, transforming a dormant waiting list into an active one allowing patients to be optimised earlier in their pathway and reduce postponement of surgery later in the pathway.
East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust reported a 27% reduction in pre-operative consultation times for surgical day cases, attributed to the innovative use of the new digital population health platform. This has allowed for more patients to be seen promptly. The digital risk stratification tool identified high-risk patients and improved clinical team productivity by selecting patients with the highest perioperative risk into combined nurse and consultant clinics. The tool effectively supported the hospital in "Making Every Contact Count". The innovation supports the national 5 core requirements for anaesthetic and perioperative medicine(APOM).
Some other benefits which have arisen form this work are
- Increased clinician productivity and enhanced decision-making through timely, accurate shared patient data.
- Clinical outcomes / efficiency gains.
- Future scaling / addressing health inequalities.
- Postponements and cancellations audit highlighting the benefit of this work.
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