Can the use of technologies in health care improve patient outcomes and experience while providing efficiencies?

I would like to express my gratitude to the Florence Nightingale Foundation and the Burdett Trust for Nursing for funding the Leadership Scholarship, thus enabling senior nurses to benefit from this development opportunity. I would particularly like to thank Liz Robb and Sue Neville for their support and guidance throughout the scholarship.

I would like to thank Helen Thomson, Director of Nursing at Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust for her support as mentor throughout the programme.

Finally I would like to thank Richard Beazley, when in his role as Chairman of East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust he encouraged and supported my application for the Leadership Scholarship and Nick Carver, CEO of the Trust for his continued support.

When I applied for the Florence Nightingale Foundation (FNF) Leadership scholarship I was clearer about the goals I wanted to achieve for my personal development and career leadership objectives than I was about the patient improvement project.

Personal Leadership Objectives:

Having previously participated in the East of England Strategic Health Authority Aspiring Directors Programme I knew that I wanted to further develop my leadership style, particularly in relation to presentation skills, personal impact and political influencing. At the time of my application I had recently moved from a Deputy Director post to my first Board role and as a result of personal coaching following this transition I had identified that I wanted to develop as a Director and develop my capacity to work as a political operator.

Career Leadership Objectives:

My career objectives were to an extent underpinned by my personal leadership objectives, I wanted to become a more strategic leader with the ability to be forward looking and innovative. I wanted to have the tools and techniques to influence and inform not only the organisations strategic plan but also that of the local and national health economy.

Patient Improvement Project

The difficulties in defining the patient improvement project were in part related to my role as a Director of Nursing and Patient Experience in an acute trust and in the political context of a post-Francis health service. The Trust had a number of identified priorities and taking into consideration the Francis recommendations, I could have chosen an improvement project in any of the following areas:

  • Improving patient experience
  • Improving patient safety
  • Developing new care pathways to improve patient outcomes
  • Safer staffing models
  • Cultural and organisational change

The latter was particularly relevant as I had chosen to apply to undertake the scholarship in the final two years of a seven year strategic plan for my organisation which would see two acute district general hospitals reconfigure all inpatient activity on one site, currently one of the largest change programmes in the NHS. However, while this would have fitted with the priorities of the organisation, this change was ‘business as usual’ for the Trust and I wanted to take forward a more innovative approach to healthcare delivery.

I decided to look at the use of new technologies to inform care pathways, improve patient experience, minimise hospital admissions and attendances by providing support to patients in the home. The utilisation of new technologies for the improvement project fitted with the identified personal leadership and career objectives.  It would address aspects of all of the above priority areas, while being innovative in line with the recommendations in Innovation Health and Wealth (DH, 2011). The project was initially intended to be a fact finding mission to inform the development of a Trust strategy for using new technologies in healthcare.

Ultimately the project has led to the development of a multi-professional Telehealth steering group, Chaired by myself and with representation from the CCG, thus incorporating a whole health economy approach. There are now two telehealth projects running, supported by external funding. In addition, two telehealth pilot projects have been led by GP practices, one with input from Trust staff. Trust clinicians are now working with an external company to further scope the application of Telehealth. Due to the time-frames there has not been the opportunity to fully evaluate the projects. However, it is anticipated that these projects will have patient, health and whole economy benefits.

Developing the Leadership Programme:

At the outset of the scholarship a number of assessments were completed, including: MBTI, 360 degree evaluation, influencing styles, political and emotional intelligence and learning styles.  The feedback from this review was valuable and informative; it helped to inform the personal and career objectives as well as the personal leadership programme that the scholarship supports.

The scholarship included a number of mandatory elements but all of the elements informed objective setting and addressed the personal and career objectives that had been identified through the personal assessment. The Leading Change through Organisational Renewal programme was particularly useful when considering the enablers and barriers to the patient improvement project, while the Personal Transformation for Leaders Programme was undertaken to specifically address the personal objectives, while informing the career objectives.

In summary the personalised leadership programme supported through the scholarship included:

  • December 2012 – Personal Assessments (Mandatory element)
  • February 2013 – Feedback on personal assessments (Mandatory element)
  • February 2013 – Florence Nightingale Foundation Conference
  • February 2013 – Leading Change Through Organisational Renewal (LCOR) (Mandatory element)
  • February 2013 – London Expo, technology and innovation conference
  • April 2013 – Co-Consulting Group Master Class (Mandatory element)
  • June 2013 – Westminster Experience (Mandatory element)
  • July 2013 – Study tour to Washington and Baltimore with the 3 Million Lives campaign (funded by the Department of Health) to review the use of technologies to inform health care models for veterans within the Veterans Association, the visit included a trip to Kaiser Permanente to review the latest technologies
  • November 2013 – Personal Transformation for Leaders Programme, Module One, Cranfield University
  • December 2013 – Chief Nursing Officer Conference
  • February 2014 – Personal Transformation for Leaders Programme, Module Two
  • March 2014 – Study tour to Melbourne, Australia to review the use of technology in health care in Victoria. The study tour Included: a visit to two health care provider organisations; the Department of Health; Victorian Health Care Association and attendance at the 2014 Australian Telehealth Conference

The benefit of the FNF Scholarship is that, unlike many other leadership programmes, it allows you to develop a bespoke leadership programme with the support of experts in the field. The skills and techniques acquired through the scholarship enable the implementation of the patient improvement project. The programme benefits not only the individual undertaking it but also the organisation and the wider NHS.

The benefits that the scholarship has provided exceeded my expectations, particularly in relation to the networking opportunities that it provides and the support of the other scholars and the Florence Nightingale Foundation.

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