Case study: Midlands Air Ambulance Charity

Midlands Air Ambulance Charity (MAAC) operates three air ambulances and three critical care cars covering six Midlands counties, including Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire, and the West Midlands.

MAAC’s purpose is to provide patients with outstanding pre-hospital care and lifesaving intervention through the operation of helicopter-led emergency medical services – and its vision is “Saving Lives by Saving Time, today, tomorrow and in the future.”

We recently chatted with Darren Davies, Head of Quality and Compliance and CQC Registered Manager from MAAC to discuss the team’s experience of Radar Healthcare after 12 months of using it. Darren covers everything from individual modules and the benefits to top tips and next steps.

MAAC is keen to encourage their workforce to promote new and innovative ideas. The original process was entirely manual. With Radar Healthcare this is 75% more streamlined with increased automation.

Darren said: “We actively encourage innovative thinking as part of our charity’s values, and likewise, cherish innovative ideas to drive improvements in all areas, and in particular how we can improve care to our patients and thank our supporters. We encourage our teams to share new thoughts, ideas, and concepts. The original process involved downloading a form from Radar Healthcare, completing it then using the email system for submission. Other records, such as decisions and implementation were then recorded on a spreadsheet, and providing feedback and updates on progress was usually reliant on emails. Now, this process is streamlined and simple for staff to use as we utilise the event reporting function. It’s quick and easy to submit an innovation proposal and staff can follow its progress as they are able to see the journey of the proposal they have submitted.”

“Aftercare referrals” is another bespoke area developed with Radar Healthcare as a method of enabling referrals to be made from all MACC staff for follow-up. All staff who may have had contact with patients, or their loved ones, can refer to the Aftercare team where there is a potential that further support can be provided. They then use Radar Healthcare to record evidence of contact, support provided, and any feedback about their service. Radar Healthcare allows non-identifiable data to be collected.

The CQC’s new inspection framework encourages providers to collect more feedback from people using their service and evidencing how they act on this to improve their service. With Radar Healthcare’s Incident Management all of this will be very easy to collect, track, and evidence during inspections.

Risk Management

Previously MAAC manually tracked and monitored risks through Excel spreadsheets. Now, with Radar Healthcare’s fully configurable risk registers and integrated action plans, the team can evidence improvements in service user and patient safety much simpler and easily import relevant data.

“What is really helpful about Radar Healthcare’s Risk Management module are the reminder prompts, such as risks due for review and agreed on dates for completing actions being due. We can easily see the status of actions and reviews required, and any flags that may be overdue. The automated notification function also provides useful prompt reminders to prevent the expiry of planned requirements. Performance of risk management can be easily monitored.” Darren Davies, Head of Quality and Compliance for Midlands Air Ambulance Charity

The automated alerts and reminders have made the MAAC team much more efficient.

In addition, Darren and the team are finding that being able to link modules together. For example, incident reports through the Incident Management function can be directly linked to a risk within the Risk Management function. This assists with quantifying risks through the evidence to support risk consequence and likelihood ratings.

Analytics and reporting

Radar Healthcare’s innovative, AI-powered analytics allows MAAC to reduce errors and make more accurate data-driven decisions. Darren says: “Using the analytics and reporting functions prevents the need to manually review numerous individual records and reports in an attempt to identify themes and trends.”

Audits

MAAC has been using Radar Healthcare’s Audits Management software since day one, after previously using manual methods to complete audits, which they found time-consuming and labour intensive. Since switching to a digital solution, the MAAC team creates a streamlined view of all reporting, communications, and data to evidence, monitor, and complete audits more efficiently.

Darren and his team particularly like that they embed a culture of continuous improvement by linking modules, like Audits and Action and Improvement Plans, together to help drive safer outcomes.

Next steps

“From my experience of the first 12 months, Radar Healthcare reflects our own service, in terms of innovation, updates, and support. It is always adapting and evolving to individual’s needs. As a customer that constantly wants to improve our processes, having a system that has the same mindset is excellent!”  Darren Davies, Head of Quality and Compliance for Midlands Air Ambulance Charity

Darren continues: “So, what we have learned is the power of event reporting and automated workflows. It is an ongoing process, but there are four new things that are hot off the press for us that we have started to build our 12-month review now, innovations, Safety Alerts, Facilities Management, and Aftercare Referral Events. There is much more potential in the future, but we are really looking forward to making more use of these areas.”

Alongside this the next step is to implement the new and improved Audits Management module e that was launched earlier this year – and together we will look for new and innovative ways to continue to improve their service and offer support.

Speak to our expert team to see how we can transform your risk, quality, and compliance processes – book a demo here!