Control Tower
Patient flow is typically highly variable, which adds to Trust costs when extra clinics have to be added or clinics do not use their full capacity, and also impacts patient care and the achievement of access targets. A Landmark Consulting Control Tower, like air traffic control, enables clinicians and managers to orchestrate flow in the optimum way.
The Control Tower project has a goal to ensure high visibility of the variables that affect performance and consistency. It makes it easier to schedule emergency, new and follow up patients. Clinics achieve higher utilization with less stress and cost, and patients are also seen earlier.
A typical NHS Trust Control Tower project would:
- Agree goals for the project and the best pilot departments/clinics with the NHS Trust management. In principle, we would be aiming to implement this in every department with a patient flow.
- Agree basic principles for each project with the relevant clinical leaders.
- Identify the available data on patient bookings and feed this into a visual planning system that enables the intelligently management of variation in both demand and provision.
- Coach the department on how to use this information to adjust patient bookings and resources.
- Quantify the benefits and communicate them across the Trust.
- Progressively move through the Trust implementing Control Towers.
As a result, as the case study shows, access targets and cost savings will be achieved, patient experience will be enhanced and staff stress levels reduced significantly.