TPP introduces pathology auto-review rules engine
SystmOne’s Auto-Review Rules Engine is currently being piloted by 20 GP practices in the UK. This tool automates the processing of pathology results, which reduces the amount of time that doctors need to spend on manual reviews. The high volume of tests requested in general practice means that doctors have to manually review many reports each day, so every minute saved in the review process makes a difference.
The Auto-Review Rules Engine assesses the content of incoming test results against rule sets to determine whether a clinician needs to review the result or not. The rule sets can be defined at a local or regional level for any clinical tests, ranging from blood grouping to bowel cancer screenings. They can also be linked to SystmOne’s clinical reports, meaning that any data on the patient record can be used to assess whether the result can be safely auto-reviewed. These rule sets are then run against unreviewed results and the results are automatically processed if they are deemed normal, or abnormal but acceptable.
For example, an HbA1c test measures the amount of glucose in someone’s blood, but the acceptable level of glucose depends in part on whether the patient already has a diabetes diagnosis. Whilst previously these differences in acceptable ranges of blood glucose levels couldn’t be accounted for using simple normal/abnormal ranges, the auto-review engine facilitates different rule sets for different types of patients. This translates into safer, more reliable care for patients with existing medical conditions. So far nearly 9,000 HbA1c tests for both patients with and without diabetes have been completely handled by SystmOne’s Auto-Review Rules Engine, requiring no manual intervention.
Ben Lawman, Design and Analyst Lead at TPP said: “Given the millions of results received by GPs every year, even a small reduction in the proportion of results requiring a manual review would equate to a meaningful time saving for GPs. The pilot has already shown that this functionality can support a high proportion of pathology results to be automatically reviewed so this has the potential to have a very significant impact on doctors’ workloads”.
We estimate the auto-review engine will save each GP around 30 minutes per day. Dr. Liam Lees, a principle GP at Carterknowle and Dore Medical Practice, says that since using SystmOne’s auto-review engine his practice has already seen a 39% reduction in the number of pathology reports that require manual review. This means that almost 100 results received each day do not require a doctor to review them.
Dr. Liam Lees said: “The auto-review rules engine, guided by clinical experience is predicted to save GPs many hours over the year, as we have already seen by the pilot in our practice. It has quickly become a staple at our practice to help manage the increasing workloads GPs face day to day.”
The future development of SystmOne’s auto-review functionality will automate not just the review of the pathology results themselves, but also common further actions that need to be done when reviewing results. For example, rules will be able to automatically send appointment invites to patients if there is an abnormal test result that requires a follow-up in the practice, or trigger a task to be sent to a specialist team. This will primarily facilitate the automatic review of more abnormal results. TPP is thrilled this pilot has already saved time for GPs, improved safety, and facilitated a faster response time for patients regarding their test results.
A notice will be posted to the system when this functionality is made more widely available.
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