The ageing population in many countries poses a considerable challenge to health and social care services. Frailty is an especially problematic expression of population ageing. Older people with frailty are at increased risk of a wide range of adverse health outcomes.

There is, however, good evidence that the frailty state of an elderly person can be reversed, as long as individuals can be identified and targeted with early inventions. Historically, this has proved difficult to achieve. However, TPP’s recent research - in partnership with NHS England, the University of Leeds and the University of Birmingham – has seen the development an algorithm which assesses the frailty of an elderly person, based only on routinely-collected data in their electronic health record. The algorithm predicts the elderly individuals most at risk of an unplanned hospital admission.

This algorithm has now been adopted nationally across the UK and built into the major EHR systems. It forms part of the NHS outcomes framework for the care of elderly citizens and is helping to deliver new care models for the elderly population that provide improved patient outcomes, better patient experience and are more financially-sustainable nationally.

Hospitals typically have numerous different clinical and administrative systems, meaning care can be inconsistent and fragmented, information can be lost and costs can be unnecessarily high.

Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, one of the largest hospital trusts in the country, has completely transformed the way they deliver care by implementing SystmOne across their organisation. Choosing SystmOne has meant that the organisation has been completely digitised, allowing them to improve the lives of their patients and make considerable cost savings.

Complete visibility of patient flow and access to patient information has eliminated common issues, such as bed blocking and delayed discharge. Introducing innovative functionality, such as SystmOne e-consultations, has been a huge success for the area. E-consultations allow secure electronic communication between doctors and specialists and provide added value and safety through a shared and integrated electronic health record.

The Isle of Wight has adopted SystmOne for all of its primary care clinics, which form the backbone of health provision for the island’s 140,000 residents.

Before this adoption, the health authority had a mixed range of systems in place, which caused problems relating to missing patient information, duplication of resources and inefficient use of staff time.

Decision makers decided to take SystmOne because its centralised infrastructure enables the island to co-ordinate health services efficiently and treat long-term condition patients more effectively. Health managers are downloading data reports to show them health trends across the Island and the prevalence of particular conditions. This significantly benefits central resource planning.

The speed of installation, benefits of integration with third party software and advanced functions that are all part of the SystmOne package, have transformed the way healthcare is delivered across the region, greatly improving processes, freeing up more time for staff to treat patients and ensuring organisations can make significant cost-savings.