View June's Board Pack - Royal Bournemouth Hospital

Board of Directors – Part I10 th June 2011These have all been hugely challenging, but we have actually achieved the seachange in each to underpin our coding quality. Therefore the areas in the action planare relatively straight forward in comparison to previous year’s requirements. The onlysignificant changes revolve around IT, which are discussed below, under action plan.However, maintaining the constant attention to improvement in all aspects of coding,along with the two day coding completion deadline (the fastest we know of in the NHS)plus having one of the lowest cost departments using Audit Commission benchmarks,is not easy. Therefore Board level recognition of the Coding Department’s staff effortwould be appreciated. This combined with feedback to clinical staff about the positiveimpact of their efforts to improve should create a positive cycle for ongoing accuracy.3. Update on the recommendations and proposed action planThe Coding Department has an accuracy improvement plan that goes far beyond theformal recommendations, as it did last year as well. However this section reflects thesix areas highlighted by the Commission. R6 relating to IT systems, has been carriedover from last year.R1 Angiogram recording. This change has been deferred to April 2012, and isdiscussed further below, as part of the wider context.R2 Skin procedure training has occurred. Action completed.R3 Coding clinic co-morbidity list new widely circulated and embedded. Actioncompleted.R4 Image control recording by clinical staff. Training has been implemented and isbeing monitored, especially in Interventional Radiology. Action completed.R5 Review and share the results with Medical Records User Group. This isunderway, but the Commission recognises this is more good practice rather thanactually being expected to improve accuracy, and is a repeat of last year.R6 Update the system, avoiding READ codes. This is discussed below.As of May 2011 all actions are completed to an agreed outcome, with the exception ofa date for the IT update to allow us to move from READ coding. This is likely to occurin late 2011, following upgrade to the server capacity in the summer. This change willhave numerous benefits including:• Less transcription errors, improving our accuracy scores.• Faster upgrades to OPCS, again improving our coding accuracy.• Less staff time and duplication of entry.• Better ability to audit coding accuracy in house, as part of the coding teams work.Results of the 2010/11 PbR Assurance Clinical Coding Audit Page 2 of 3