News
Tees puts itself on the Map
Demonstrating how the Map of Medicine facilitates innovation, NHS Tees is developing a document directory on the Map for all its local information, from guidelines and referral forms to local patient information leaflets.
Serving a patient population of over 540,000, Tees need a way to ensure consistency and currency of local information and documentation across all four of its PCTs (NHS Hartlepool, NHS Middlesbrough, NHS Redcar and Cleveland, and NHS Stockton-on-Tees). Document control issues faced are both quality and productivity-related:
- different versions of the same information are used in different areas
- guidance is not easily kept up to date across the region
- high costs are associated with reproducing and distributing paper documents
Tees has been using the Map since 2010, reviewing services against the national care maps to ensure they are aligned with best practice, and adding local administrative information, such as details of screening services, to over 50 maps.
All health organisations within the Tees region agreed that the Map should be used as the single source of local documentation and a Tees Map of Medicine Steering Group has been set up to support and oversee developments and communication. Tees now have a single online point of access, which is easily available to all healthcare professionals, and means documents only need to be updated in one place. This ensures a consistent approach to accessing up-to-date information.
In the most recent development, earlier this year the James Cook University Hospital decommissioned their legacy documentation system, moving across to the Map document directory. Now, all clinicians and healthcare organisations across Tees, including 86 GP practices and two acute trusts, are able to access the Map as a single source of local information.
Map of Medicine specialises in helping local health communities innovate locally and then share the results. Your communities are able to see how those facing similar challenges have successfully transformed services and protocols. These shared experiences can inform your own efficiency or quality improvements.
To find out more about local innovation or moving information to the Map of Medicine, call your local Map consultant, contact the Map’s offices on 0207 492 6300 or email the team at sales@mapofmedicine.com.
You can view Tees’ local document directory by logging on to the Map and switching to the Tees view