The Smart Way:
Transforming healthcare through effective, clinically led digital systems.

I’m excited to share my journey at SmartCo as a remote working mother of 2, recently diagnosed with ADHD after several years of misdiagnosed post-natal depression. Since my diagnosis, I’ve discovered that challenges I once faced have become strengths, and I hope my learning can inspire others. The Power of Task Lists and Clear Objectives Living with ADHD means I need structure to thrive. Task lists are my lifeline, helping me break down work into manageable chunks. Tools like Trello and Planner keep me organised and on track. Clear objectives are crucial – knowing exactly what I need to deliver helps me stay focused and motivated. Without this, I easily become disengaged and often question myself as to what am I aiming for? Deadlines: My Productivity Boosters Deadlines are my best friends. They give me a sense of urgency and a clear timeframe to accomplish tasks. This helps me manage my time effectively and ensures I meet my goals without feeling overwhelmed. There’s no better feeling than ticking off the ‘To Do’s’ at the end of the day. I find this approach works at home too when I give myself 10 minutes to put the laundry away before my next call! Spotting Improvements and Simplifying Processes One of my superpowers is spotting inefficiencies. I can see where steps can be shortened, savings can be made, and processes can be simplified. Why make things harder than it needs to be? This knack for streamlining operations has given me access to lots of opportunities, and I enjoy it! Shameful to say this is not effective at home when I have Amazon, Netflix, Disney+ subscriptions which hardly get used! The Importance of Effective Communication I have worked remotely for 6 years now which works well for me for my work-life balance but it also means I rely heavily on effective communications. Effective communication is vital for everyone, not just those with neurodiversity or home workers. As companies grow and scale, maintaining clear and open communication channels is essential. At SmartCo, I champion effective and consistent communication to ensure everyone, whether remote or onsite, feels part of the team. Virtual ‘water cooler’ chats help foster a sense of community and keep us connected. These are just some of my ADHD quirks, that have become the foundations of finding the right employer. I would always ensure that they can support me in these areas. Supporting Neurodiversity in the Workplace Employers can play a significant role in supporting neurodiverse employees. Here are a few ways: Flexible Hours: Allowing employees to work during their most productive times Right Tools: Providing access to productivity apps and communication platforms Regular Check-Ins: Frequent catch-ups (remote and onsite) to keep everyone on track Training and Awareness: Educating the team about neurodiversity to foster understanding. Supportive Culture: Promoting mental health awareness and providing resources About SmartCo Consulting SmartCo is a consultancy business specialising in the delivery of digital transformation projects for large private and public sector organisations. We are a people first business, prioritising employee well-being, flexible working and equal opportunities for all. If you’d like to discuss how SmartCo can support you in the workplace, please contact us today.

SmartCo is a HealthTrust Europe Awarded Supplier More great framework news for SmartCo. We’re proud to share that we’ve been successfully appointed to: Lot 6 – ICT and Digital Consultancy Solutions and Advisory Services of the HealthTrust Europe (HTE) Consultancy Solutions Framework. This achievement marks an exciting step forward as we expand our role in providing clinically-led digital transformation to healthcare providers. From advisory services to digital deployment and optimisation, we are committed to driving transformation and innovation across the healthcare sector. This opportunity allows us to work even more closely with healthcare organisations, helping them harness the power of digital technologies to improve patient care, operational efficiency and overall outcomes. ‘We’re delighted to be awarded onto HealthTrust Europe’s latest professional services Framework. The framework was designed to support change in healthcare through digital transformation which mirrors our service offering. With upcoming changes in the procurement landscape, we must secure compliant and robust routes to market. This is another important framework for SmartCo and we are excited about supporting our NHS customers on it.’ George Jackson, Head of Commercial If you would like to discuss this framework and how it could be used at your organisation, please contact us here.

‘Don’t quit your daydream, it’s your life that you’re making.’ Lyrics that I listened to on repeat when I returned to work after my first child in 2022. I remember so vividly thinking to myself, Darcy why are you daydreaming about being a working mum? Surely, it’s a human right to have a work/life balance and be able to look after your own child that you just spent 9 months growing! Unfortunately, it would seem this isn’t always the case. Not necessarily because the options aren’t there, but because people feel so trapped they don’t even know they exist. Much like the position I found myself in, in August 2022. Returning to work with the expectation of being in the office from 9 – 5.30 and letting someone else raise my not even 1 year old. I remember thinking… ‘Maybe I can’t return to work, maybe being a stay-at-home mum is my only choice.’ Just how ridiculous does that sound. Well, that was until I was approached by SmartCo. The company that has given me my ‘daydream’ (however cheesy that may sound). Having a thriving career whilst being a present parent. Being able to do the nursery drop offs and pickups. Having the option to work from home or go into the office. Key there being, having the option, an essential part of being a return-to-work mum. Let’s fast forward to January 2023… POSITIVE. We were expecting another bundle of joy in September 2023. But wait, work… I need to tell SmartCo. I’ve only been here 4 months… what will they say? I remember having the telephone conversation in March with HR and my line manager and finishing the phone call feeling relived. It would seem I had nothing to worry about and this call was shortly followed by a company wide announcement… ‘the maternity policy is to be reviewed’. Following this came a thorough working conditions assessment of my home working arrangement, the flexibility and encouragement to attend all required/suggested appointments and fantastic support company wide. 9th September 2023, I started my maternity leave at 5pm and went into labour at 7pm. What I like to call, working up until the last minute! This was then followed by 7 wonderful months of welcoming our new arrival into the world before my expected return to work date, 1st April 2024. A seamless return to work with a very helpful handover from my maternity cover who had joined us permanently during this time. As well as a great level of support from HR and the whole team in general. Which brings me to today, 5 months since I returned to work. My feet are firmly back on the ground and I have recently been moved into a new role ‘People & Culture Officer’ which has opened up so many great opportunities for me and allowed me to take on and own a handful of exciting projects. I can proudly say that I am a full-time working mother of two beautiful young girls. I hope that one day my children know that I fought to be a present mum. I fought to aspire them to have a successful career. I fought for the life that unfortunately so many return to work mums don’t believe exists. It’s 2024, it’s time large corporations recognise the importance of mums returning to work whilst also being present in their children’s life. About SmartCo Consulting SmartCo is a consultancy business specialising in the delivery of digital transformation projects for large private and public sector organisations. We are a people first business, prioritising employee well-being, flexible working and equal opportunities for all. If you’re a return-to-work parent, looking for a new opportunity, please contact us today.

How we improved urgent and emergency care with a digital solution that could benefit health trusts everywhere Same day emergency care, known as SDEC, is a facility within a hospital to assess and diagnose patients referred from their GP or a hospital’s A&E department. It aims to benefit both patients and the hospital by reducing waiting times and hospital admissions as patients with relevant conditions can be quickly assessed, diagnosed and treated without being admitted, and if it is clinically safe to do so, they will be able to go home the same day. SmartCo Consulting worked in partnership with The Health Informatics Service (THIS) and Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust (CHFT) to create a software model that smooths the workflow between CHFT’s two A&Es and relevant SDECs by modernising the pre-existing digital solution for processing patients. Giving A&E staff the right tool to do their job Patients presenting at A&E who need to be admitted to hospital create a labour intensive workflow. To avoid this for patients who do not need to be admitted, CHFT has been using the SDEC digital solution introduced when the SDEC concept was in its infancy. The rationale was to take the existing solution and a later updated model created by Oracle Cerner – whose Millennium EPR is used in both CHFT hospitals, one in Huddersfield and the other in Halifax – and fashion a localised version, called SDECModule, that gives A&E staff the right tool to do their job as part of Oracle Cerner’s FirstNet® patient tracking system. SDECModule provides A&E staff with a much higher level overview of all the SDEC departments, enabling them to easier see who can be sent to which SDEC. It also provides SDEC staff visibility of the patients in A&E who can easily be transferred from there, thus reducing congestion and pressure within A&E. Louise Croxall, CHFT’s Chief Nurse Information Officer, says: “The whole aim of this project was to give back time to nursing care while making sure the right patients are in the right place at the right time. We did this by removing the duplication of information as SDECModule uses the same documentation for A&E and the SDEC, which reduces the need for staff to ask patients the same questions over and over again.”   Additionally, the improved visibility of patient status allows for better reporting metrics, especially meeting the new standard for emergency care summaries (ECS), illustrating how long someone has been in the SDEC. Louise Croxall: “As this is a staff-facing initiative, the main impact is on them to work differently albeit as part of the SDEC solution they’re already well accustomed to. Essentially, the SDECModule enhancement is allowing them ‘to see the wood for the trees’. “The benefit for patients referred to a SDEC is a better experience thanks to a smoother journey, waiting to be seen in a more appropriate, less pressurised environment, and even shorter waiting times, we hope. And by using SDECs for inpatients waiting to be discharged, we free up bed space for those in A&E who need to be admitted and reduce risk if A&E is congested by creating more time for staff to focus on the sickest patients.” Collaborating for a totally seamless transition Whilst THIS had the resource in-house, it did not have the capacity, so they collaborated with SmartCo to help them develop, deploy and configure their model content in CHFT’s Oracle/Cerner server domain. SmartCo worked with a wide range of stakeholders and the PMO team from THIS throughout the project’s lifecycle to create a clinically designed, operationally delivered solution. The resulting model was launched at CHFT’s Huddersfield Royal Infirmary site, going live for all three SDECs (medical, surgical and frailty) at the same time, and we then repeated the roll out at Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax. Neil Staniforth, THIS’ Director of Digital Ops and Delivery, says: “By concentrating on the Huddersfield site first, we could focus all of our training and change management resources on the one site to ensure a smooth transition, particularly as the pre-existing and the new models were dual running. Once we’d made sure there was no impact on Huddersfield Royal Infirmary staff, we started the roll out at Calderdale Royal Hospital.   “We made sure there was enough ‘at the elbow’ support by employing the relevant technical team to work alongside the operational team working with the clinical end-users to achieve a seamless transition.”   Within this three-tiered approach, four FTE change facilitators from THIS’ digital team worked with their training team to provide hands-on help during the roll-out. Any technical issues were picked up by their Silver Service team, a proactive technical team within THIS, who then liaised directly with technical support and CHFT’s EPR teams, thus avoiding any job queues sitting with our service desk, to expedite a remedy. Although the system is still very new, initial data shows that the transition time from A&E to SDEC, to being discharged is making a positive difference. Easing pressures and smoothing the patient journey The most tangible impact of SDECModule from a staff perspective is that we have improved the visibility of which patients can be transferred to a SDEC area as opposed to waiting in A&E. Louise Croxall: “For example, if we have 70 people in the A&E and 10 can be triaged to a SDEC, those we transfer spend their time in a more suitable environment and the hope is this positively impacts on their waiting time. “And by reducing the numbers waiting in A&E, it has a positive impact on that department too, because patients can be seen sooner, which improves the experience and the journey of both sets of patients and helps the staff because it eases some of the pressures on them.”   The digital element of the new way of working, SDECModule as part of Cerner’s FirstNet® patient tracking system, is a more seamless process than that employed previously. It not only provides clarity of who can be streamed off to a SDEC, but how quickly that is achieved. Neil Staniforth: “The improved transparency improves CHFT’s reporting capabilities too, by helping to track waiting times. For example, the trust’s inpatient system might say someone has been in the A&E for 0.7 of a day, which is actually 9 hours, so by displaying the wait in hours as opposed to a fraction, it paints a more realistic picture.”   We think the main value generated by the modernised model is that collectively we have improved the pre-existing solution for every other trust in the country. By sharing what we have achieved we can improve patient tracking for everyone if they follow the roadmap we created collaboratively. However, a second, unintended benefit, has emerged within CHFT. Colleagues working in their assessment units have requested to use SDECModule and FirstNet®, as the streamlined process is better suited to their ways of working. The first roll-out is planned for the Paediatric Assessment Unit at Calderdale Royal Hospital with others to follow, creating a quick, safe solution to increase patient experience and patient safety. Creating a smooth workflow that can benefit other trusts SmartCo has an established record of working in and alongside healthcare organisations to create clinically led digital systems, and our staff became part of an agile project process led by CHFT’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Nursing Information Officer (CNIO). It included a wide array of clinical stakeholders ranging from consultants, clinical leads, CHFT’s EPR team, through to junior doctors, nursing staff and operational colleagues – as well as the PMO team from THIS. SmartCo staff held workshops with stakeholders throughout the project’s lifecycle to develop, deploy and configure model content in THIS’ Cerner/Oracle server domain, mitigating all issues along the way to onboard a clinically designed, operationally delivered solution. In effect, we worked in partnership with THIS in taking off-the-shelf model content from Cerner and finding innovative ways to embed it in their Oracle/Cerner domain to create a smooth, problem-free workflow that can now benefit other organisations in the future. Taja Quigley, SmartCo’s Director, says: “The work with CHFT has been a collaboration of two organisations with a single goal of developing a SDEC content which enables the smooth running of their SDEC units. It has been a long journey with some complex work along the way, but the delivery of this will be scalable to hopefully benefit many more NHS organisations.” Sharing knowledge and saving time THIS now plan to share their learnings and model content on the Cerner Model Village, a well-recognised, transparent and trusted source of intelligence, so that it can be viewed by teams from other trusts. Neil Staniforth: “This is knowledge we have acquired from the project’s 12-month lifecycle, but now we’ve completed the ‘hard yards’ it will enable other trusts to realise similar projects in a much shorter timescale – possibly as little as three to four months. We would recommend they do this in conjunction with SmartCo, who proved to be an excellent collaborator.”   Meanwhile, the plan now is to roll out the new solution to nearby trusts sharing the Oracle/Cerner domain over the next 12 months, beginning with the Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs six hospitals, and the Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Airedale General Hospital. This means it will be deployed in three trusts and four A&E departments, all using the single domain. About SmartCo Consulting At SmartCo Consulting, we are committed to delivering exceptional digital solutions. We’re a trusted partner with an established record of working in and alongside healthcare organisations. We have tried-and-tested methods for people-centred healthcare transformation, clinical engagement and benefits realisation. If you’d like to learn more about this project or how SmartCo can help with your digital transformation, contact us here.