Our in-house Research Projects Team worked with NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) to create a custom data-collection and analysis audit tool.
It is designed to support hospitals self-assess their compliance to key blood transfusion improvement areas.
Putting the patient at the heart of every decision
The Patient Blood Management Team at NHSBT work with hospitals in England to support safe and effective transfusion practice to improve patient outcomes.
The team develops resources to help healthcare providers to implement best practices in line with national guidelines and recommendations.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) publish healthcare quality standards that ensures the promotion of good health and good care, in line with clinical effectiveness and cost effectiveness.
Whilst not compulsory, hospitals are expected to make best efforts to comply.
In 2016, NICE published Blood Transfusion Quality Standard QS138, highlighting four priority areas for improvement:
- Iron supplementation
- Tranexamic acid for adults
- Reassessment after red blood cell transfusions
- Patient information
NHSBT support the quality statements and wanted a resource that hospitals could use to measure compliance.
Therefore, at Snap Surveys, we were tasked with creating an easy-to-use audit tool that could enable hospitals to have better insight of their practice.
Overcoming manual processes to streamline feedback and reports
NHSBT initially created a standard survey in our platform which hospitals in the South East region of England completed on a 6-monthly basis.
NHSBT then downloaded data into an Excel spreadsheet, with the data used to manually produce bi-annual compliance reports for hospitals.
After proof of concept, there was an appetite to expand roll-out.
NHSBT wanted to upscale and automate the process with the goal of rolling out a more sophisticated audit tool nationally.
Choosing Snap Surveys
As a long-time customer of over 20 years, NHSBT knew we could help.
This was thanks to the sophistication of our Snap XMP software, the expertise of our researchers, and the support we offer.
How did the Snap Surveys team help?
Our task was to upgrade the functionality of the survey, incorporate benchmarking data and automate the process to eliminate the time-consuming manual data analysis needed to generate reports.
Our team initially worked with NHSBT to optimise the existing survey design to capture additional anonymised case metrics and build-in survey response flexibility.
Snap XMP software was then used to provide live, automated data analysis. Comparative local, regional and national benchmarking figures and the inclusion of trending data was important to support any quality improvement initiatives.
Work then began to design two new instantly available Smart Reports, a bespoke hospital report and a regional report which could capture data per quarter against the four key areas.
The resulting output is QS138 Quality Insights: An automated quality improvement national blood transfusion audit tool, Patient Blood Management NHS Blood and Transplant (2023), launched in March 2023.
The benefits of Snap XMP
Our survey platform – Snap XMP – is a live database which offers automated data analysis and benchmarking with real time access to compliance reports.
The development required thorough validation and completion of data-sharing agreements.
Crucially, the QS138 Quality Insights Audit Tool came in on time and on budget.
Smart Reports – saving time and money
Once we built the Smart Reports, they can be reproduced again with ease. This means each hospital using the QS138 Quality Insights Audit Tool can run a report as quickly and often as needed.
As well as saving time and money, an automated process is less prone to error than running manual reports.
Conclusion
Thanks to the capabilities of the QS138 Quality Insights Audit Tool, the project has been far bigger than originally intended.
The easy sharing of data within Snap XMP provides the functionality to drive best practices through self-assessment, providing a much-needed resource that supports hospitals to identify target areas and introduce initiatives for improvements in patient care.
Tool recognitions
QS138 Quality Insights Audit Tool has been endorsed by NICE and its use recommended in the 2023 National Comparative Audit of Blood Transfusion.
As well as being a finalist in the 2024 HSJ Digital Awards in the category of Driving Change Through Data and Analytics, it is listed as a resource on the Health Care Quality Improvement Partnership ‘Directory’.
Customer Quote
“We thoroughly enjoyed working with the Snap team on this project. Snap helped us understand the capabilities of the software, enabling us to easily make quick decisions and introduce enhanced features to our original design to ensure that we produced exactly the blood transfusion audit tool we wanted. Always at hand to answer any questions or address any issues, the Snap project team went above and beyond to ensure our project ran smoothly.
The launch of QS138 Quality Insights has been warmly received by transfusion teams since its launch in March 2023. Developing a resource which helps reduce the burden of audit whilst simultaneously providing key insights for improvement areas in transfusion safety aligns perfectly with our mission as a Patient Blood Management team. With over 130 hospitals across England and Wales signed up, this reflects a strong appetite for a much-needed resource to support hospitals in delivering the best patient care.”
Anwen Davies, QS138 Quality Insights Project Lead