THE dietetic team at The Royal Oldham Hospital is going digital, as part of the Global Digital Exemplar (GDE) Fast Follower programme.

The project involves the standardisation and digitisation of documents used by the dietetic team in order to reduce paper usage and improve patient safety and flow at hospital - part of the Northern Care Alliance (NCA) group.

Once fully rolled out, this aims to reduce the manual recording and duplication of dietetic forms and processes. It will involve introducing document template forms into one structured dietetic clinical note. This will mean that patient information will be readily available to other disciplines and will be filed within the patient’s electronic patient record.

The dietetics team are qualified and regulated health professionals who support patients by assessing, diagnosing and treating dietary and nutritional problems. They use the most up-to-date public health and scientific research on food, health and disease to help patients make appropriate lifestyle and food choices or manage any health conditions.

The dietetic team at hospital currently receives on average 180 adult referrals per month. Although these referrals arrive electronically, they are currently manually processed. Digitising the forms will significantly reduce the amount of manual transcribing required by members of the team and improve the patient consultation process.

Nicola Bielby, site lead for dietetics at the Royal Oldham, said: “Sometimes, during and after a consultation with a patient, we may have to manually complete several different forms. These often involve entering information twice and searching for information. This can be very time consuming. We’re really looking forward to being able to complete this so much more quickly, enabling us to spend more time with our patients.”

Once discharged, dietetic notes will be pulled together electronically and forwarded to the relevant health and care provider. This will reduce the amount of time it takes to process paperwork for these patients and streamline the dietetic pathway. It will also reduce the need to store dietetic paper records within the department.

Dr Georges Ng Man Kwong, chief clinical information officer, said: “Digitising our clinical pathways will streamline patient care in a number of specialties and really make a difference to both staff and patients. This is one of a number of projects within the GDE Fast Follower programme, which will support the transformation of our clinical services across the Northern Care Alliance.”