Amid the current NHS crisis, clinicians desperately need support to collaborate on tackling a wealth of different challenges - from record waiting lists to staff shortages and rising patient demand. At Cinapsis, we’re proud to be working with a number of fantastic NHS partners to provide clinicians with the tools to communicate and collaborate more easily on care. Our platform gives clinicians access to timely advice and guidance, and enables primary and secondary care teams to work together to achieve the best outcomes for patients.

But don’t just take it from us - the statistics speak for themselves. Data on the use of Cinapsis form across our NHS partners show how time and cost can be saved for clinicians, while patients receive faster access to care. Read on to discover some of the most significant stats and find out what they mean in practice.

1. 83% of patients are prevented from making an unnecessary visit to A&E.

Using Cinapsis, primary care clinicians can access direct advice and guidance from their secondary care colleagues at the touch of a button. As a result, they can collaborate on whether a referral is necessary, or if a patient can instead be triaged to a more appropriate form of care. For those who are deemed not to need emergency care, this could mean being directed to an outpatient clinic, community service or at-home care. By supporting this effective, streamlined triage, Cinapsis is helping reduce unnecessary visits to A&E, easing demand on services and speeding up access to care for those who need it.

2. For every 10,000 cases referred through the platform, Cinapsis saves an average of 1,400 hours.

By enabling clinicians across primary and secondary care to communicate and share advice and guidance in real-time, Cinapsis significantly reduces their admin burden. Integration with electronic patient record systems also helps automate a significant amount of data upload. The outcome of an advice and guidance request can be automatically uploaded to the patient record, for example, eliminating the need for the clinician or surgery staff to manually update it. This frees up more time for clinicians to spend with patients, helping boost capacity to meet rising demand.

3. Calls made through Cinapsis receive an average call rating of 4.6/5

Cinapsis streamlines communication between primary and secondary care and makes it easier for vital advice and guidance to be sought and shared. Gone are the days of dialling endlessly and waiting to be put through via a busy switchboard. Using Cinapsis, primary care clinicians can call appointed consultants in secondary care directly. Consultation can be held in a timely manner, without adding burden to either clinician’s workload. A shared referral decision can then be made during or after the call, helping speed up access to care for the patient.

4. 70% of dermatology patients treated within primary care following advice and guidance

Timely remote access to advice and guidance also enables primary care clinicians to triage patients more easily and efficiently. Where an urgent referral is deemed unnecessary by the specialist reviewing the case, the patient can instead be redirected to the most appropriate form of care. This helps reduce the number of patients entering A&E, easing the pressure on emergency care services. Meanwhile, patients’ minds can be put at ease and they can be directed to the right treatment for them much sooner.

5. In Norfolk and Waveney, wait times for specialist advice were reduced from 50 weeks to 48 hours.

Through our work delivering a teledermatology service with North Norfolk Primary Care, we’ve been able to support primary care clinicians in the area to significantly streamline the referral process. Using a dermatoscope, clinicians can take clinical grade diagnostic imagery of worrying moles or skin lesions and send these securely to their secondary care colleagues via the Cinapsis platform. This is enabling specialist dermatologists at nearby hospitals to review cases remotely and advise on whether a referral to secondary care is needed, much quicker. By reducing the time it takes to share this advice, use of Cinapsis is helping make the dermatology referral pathway more efficient, supporting faster access to care for patients and reducing pressure on services.

6. At Cheshire and Merseyside, use of Cinapsis helped eliminate the 56% of unnecessary referrals being made to the two-week wait pathway for skin cancer.

By facilitating quick, remote access to specialist advice and guidance in partnership with Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership, Cinapsis is also helping streamline the number of cases being referred via the two-week wait pathway. Dermatologists can review which patients need to be seen before they are sent to an urgent care clinic. Patients who are deemed not at risk of cancer can then be triaged elsewhere, reducing the waiting list and freeing up appointments for those who do need urgent consultation.

We’re so proud of the impact the work we are doing with our amazing NHS partners is having, especially amid the current challenges facing services. Clinicians need tools that support them to meet rising demand, while streamlining processes to ensure admin burden is not added to their already busy workloads. We can’t wait to continue working with our fantastic partners to expand this support and continue optimising outcomes for patients and clinicians across the NHS.

—

Find out how Cinapsis can support your NHS organisation by connecting with a member of our team.