Archipelago Healthcare – Better Healthcare in Mind
A common reaction to systems improvement methodologies (like Lean applied in healthcare) is to perceive them as somehow careless about Patient care and concerned only with systems and processes. It is an understandable reaction until one realises that Lean managers are actually trying to shape organisational behaviour to make the organisation more responsive to patients needs, not less so..
Archipelago just completed diagnostic work for South Staffordshire Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust. We looked at the operation of their Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment services Observations, data collection and analysis took place over five days, culminating in feedback presentations. The Trust are taking findings to implementation alongside their ‘creating capable teams’ initiative.
The OBMH Quality & Productivity site has been launched, designed to promote the sharing of ideas and information throughout OBMH and to enable the sharing of best practices.
Some of Archipelago Healthcare Ltd’s extensive work with the Trust is ’showcased’ in articles written by the staff with whom we have worked:
Community Acute [...]
Archipelago recently completed a comprehensive review of medical structures for a major mental health foundation trust. The review took several weeks to complete during which Archipelago worked alongside clinical directors to gather testimony and data from patients and their psychiatrists. Archipelago remains involved, facilitatiing working groups made up of consultant psychiatrists. Significant changes have been agreed that [...]
Archipelago led work streams which allowed mental health services in Buckinghamshire to improve the usage of Ambulance Trust contracted journeys (already block purchased to convey service users to and from wards and day services) and significantly reduced the number of journeys that were abandoned or wasted (approximately £60,000 of savings were made compared with previous year). Oxford and [...]
What are the essential measures to stimulate high quality, low cost operations in mental healthcare?
I would make the following observations about measures and stimulating high quality, low cost operations:
Flow
Measures that describe flow through the system such as length of stay (provided they are clearly defined and interpreted) are most likely to encourage frontline staff to [...]
In June 2009 Archipelago Healthcare Ltd completed a major piece of work in the field of Psychological Therapies…
The work stream involved:
Understanding staff needs through observation, interview and data collection.
Designing developing and facilitating the adoption of a solution (created by adapting the local information system (PCIS) to better serve stakeholders; most [...]
Archipelago Healthcare Ltd has been profiled in a paper describing lean work completed with Buckinghamshire Crisis Services. Co-authored by Consultant Psychiatrist Danny Allen and then-Service Manager Wendy Blaylock, the work has been peer reviewed and accepted for publication in The Psychiatric Bulletin…
Psychiatric Bulletin (2009) 33: 252-254. doi: 10.1192/pb.bp.107.018499
© 2009 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
This Article
Local [...]
Freshly graduated, Ned Hobbs was thrown into an internship at Archipelago which opened his eyes to the frenetic world of healthcare in the UK….
Barely out of my final exam and I was making the journey back home from Nottingham – where I had been at University – for the last time. Finals were over, my [...]
