NHS West Yorkshire's new app streamlines patient discharge process

The NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) has developed a new healthcare app that promises to streamline the discharge process for patients, as part of a push to facilitate more personalised care plans. 

The Discharge to Assess (D2A) App, which assists healthcare professionals in assessing patients’ condition to determine if they are eligible for discharge, is currently being trialled by the Transfer of Care (TOC) hub in Leeds.

It will allow for a “smoother transition” process for patients by facilitating a more joined up communication between healthcare providers to ensure continuity of care, says Leonardo Tantari, Chief Digital Information Officer (Leeds) fo West Yorkshire ICB and Leeds City Council, who developed the app alongside Peter Withington, IDS Power Platform Lead. 

The D2A app enables healthcare professionals to view key information related to patients’ health status, like the number of failed discharges and delays. The main objective is to ensure that patients are discharged from the hospital as soon as they are medically stable, so that their ongoing care can be provided in a more suitable environment like their own home. 

Patients will benefit from a more detailed, personalised care plan that considers factors such as medical history, social support, and available community resources. The app also enables remote monitoring of patients' health status and provides reminders for medication schedules or follow-up appointments. 

The pilot will run for a two-week period and there is a live deployment pipeline, meaning any feedback to the app can be acted upon quickly. 

“Beyond this, its usefulness extends further still, as data collected by the app will sit with our Office of Data Analytics team who will be able to join this information to the Leeds Data Model for further uses,” says Tantari.