The Emergency Department and Same Day Emergency Care teams in Leeds Teaching Hospitals started using the Tasks module on CEMBooks this spring. At their June ‘Friday Focus’ recently, Dr Jon Jones and Dr Stuart Nuttall (ED Consultants) presented to the wider organisation how the rollout had gone and the how the drive to improve safety and timeliness of treatments had highlighted a clear need to improve the current process.
The team has been working for years to improve task management in the emergency department, moving away from unreliable paper lists. The paper system often led to lost tasks and difficulty in prioritisation, resulting in safety incidents such as delayed treatments. Inspired by efficient systems in other industries, they explored IT solutions but found many to be too costly or incompatible with their main system, Symphony. They eventually collaborated with CEMBooks, a system they already used for logging incidents, to develop a module tailored to their needs. This new system allows tasks to be logged and accessed from any device, with features for prioritising and tracking tasks, which helps in auditing and managing the workload.
The implementation involved several stages, starting with surveys that revealed staff concerns about the safety of the paper system. After testing and refining the CEMBooks module through multiple cycles in line with the Leeds Improvement Method, they rolled it out department-wide. Feedback has been generally positive, although there are issues around limited computer access and concerns about using personal devices. The system helps ensure tasks are not lost and provides a digital record, which is crucial for accountability, and timely delivery of care. It also aids in resource allocation by providing data on workload and task completion.
Future plans include expanding the system to other areas, starting with the LGI ED, and integrating it further with existing systems like PPM (the Leeds EPR system). The team aims to use the data from CEMBooks to inform staffing decisions and improve communication between teams. They also see potential for the system to support non-clinical tasks in other organisational areas. The goal is to embed this tool into daily practice, making task management more efficient and reliable, ultimately improving patient care and safety.
For further information on how Tasks works see our video here: https://youtu.be/Rq1nMLMSMPI?feature=shared
Stuart