Fast ASsessment and Treatment in Healthcare (FAST Healthcare)

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

NHS England produced a publication in its 65th anniversary year (2013) entitled 'The NHS Belongs to the People: A Call to Action'. It articulates the aspiration to deliver the very highest standards of patient care against the reality that the projected total cost of running NHS England will rise from £95Bn in 2013 to £137Bn in 2020, whilst the resource will only rise to £108Bn in the same period. There are a number of factors that are leading to rising costs, and the Call to Action highlights poorly joined-up care between adult social care, community services and hospitals as one of these. This project aims to address this issue.The NHS currently delivers healthcare to patients across a number of different levels depending on need, from non-specialist treatment in GP surgeries and community health centres through to specialised treatment at local or regional hospitals. As a patient moves from community treatment towards hospital-based treatment, both the length of time for treatment and the cost increase. Therefore, it is important that patients are treated as close to their own communities as possible for as long as that is effective as this will reduce cost. There is a benefit to patient experience too. Moving treatment back to a community-delivered level increases patient involvement. This means that they are better informed as they have to take greater responsibility for themselves. Therefore, reducing the cost of healthcare does not mean a poorer service. Quite the reverse can be true and the potential to both improve the experience of patients and reduce the cost could be made possible by developing a new methodology for the clinical diagnostics and treatment process.This can be realised by taking a systems-based engineering approach to designing such a new methodology which is then enabled by appropriate technological and medical advances and permits a holistic approach to care delivered in a joined-up fashion across the health service.The result will be Fast ASsessment and Treatment in Healthcare (FAST Healthcare). Fast assessment is essential to the process. At whatever point a patient enters the healthcare system, a decision is required as to how treatment should progress and subsequently how and where it should be delivered. A holistic view of the healthcare system would permit seamless care from communities to hospitals. This is then followed up by fast delivery of treatment, and overall optimised treatment.Our Aim can therefore be summarised as follows: to initiate systems-based engineered methodologies for providing joined-up treatment in the public health sector.