The Welsh Blood Service (WBS) is celebrating after being shortlisted at this year’s NHS Wales Awards, announced last week.
The NHS Wales Awards recognise how innovative ideas for change can make a significant difference to the patients who need care, the organisations who provide care, and the health and care system as a whole. It is an opportunity to showcase hardworking and inspiring teams working together, striving to improve healthcare practices and patient care across Wales.
Welsh Blood Service is up for the following award:
Providing services in partnership across NHS Wales
Welsh Blood Service – Improving patient care by transforming access to kidney transplant patient data across Wales: Collaborative implementation of a live-data digital dashboard
The project involved the development of an innovative new kidney transplant dashboard that has been launched by the Welsh Blood Services’ Welsh Transplantation and Immunogenetics Laboratory (WTAIL).
The digital kidney transplant dashboard was introduced to improve the process of updating, distributing and viewing the Kidney/Pancreas Transplant Register. WTAIL maintain a register of around 250 patients from South, West and Mid Wales, who are on the UK waiting list to receive a kidney and/or pancreas transplant.
WTAIL collaborated with specialists in the NHS Wales Microsoft 365 Centre of Excellence, Digital Health & Care Wales (DHCW) and WBS Digital Services to design and implement the new dashboard.
The new Kidney Transplant Dashboard captures selected patient data from WTAIL databases and clearly displays it to WTAIL staff and authorised external users in NHS Wales, in an interactive “Power BI” dashboard. This helps WTAIL and their service users to deliver better patient care by maintaining access to up-to-date information (instead of waiting on monthly reports) and providing visual prompts (e.g. when new blood samples are required).
The concept was first proposed by WTAIL Laboratory Services Manager, Deborah Pritchard at a 2021 ‘Hackathon’ event, to develop ideas. It was then followed up for design and enhancement by the NHS Wales Microsoft 365 Centre of Excellence team, in collaboration with the WBS Project Team.
Discussing the new dashboard Felicity May, Clinical Specialist Histocompatibility & Immunogenetics Digital Lead, said: “The Kidney Transplant Dashboard has been a game changer for us, not only for improving the way we manage our transplant patients, but also highlighting the potential for digital solutions to improve our services.”
Dr Tracey Rees, Chief Scientific Officer at the Welsh Blood Service said “we have already received positive feedback about the dashboard from services users.
“This is a fantastic example of collaborative working between the WBS and other NHS stakeholder groups, to address service needs and improve patient care.
“We’re absolutely thrilled to have been shortlisted for this award and look forward to meeting fellow finalists at the awards ceremony in October. In the meantime I congratulate the team for the pioneering work they have done to make this innovative concept a reality.”
The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Cardiff, on 26 October 2023. With an overwhelming amount of inspiring entries submitted this year, the judging panel of NHS experts found it incredibly difficult to shortlist the 24 finalists in the eight award categories. The next stage will see judges take part in virtual visits with each finalist to find out more about their improvement projects.
For a full list of finalists please visit nhsawards.wales.
