Over the last 15 years, if there is one thing being the founder and MD of ReferAll has given me, it’s the confidence to work with exercise and wellbeing providers. We’ve seen it all, and after much trial and error I have a good idea of what makes a streamlined, effective referral programme. A large majority of the enquiries we receive come from providers who are still using spreadsheets to record what’s going on in their schemes and need a more up-to-date system for reporting to commissioners, the board or potential healthcare partners and funders.
As Donna Williamson, Senior Health Innovations Manager at Everybody Health & Leisure explains, using software like ours at ReferAll not only enables simpler data reporting and analysis, which facilitates more effective funding bids, but also helps inform future decision making.
“When I came into my role, Everybody Health & Leisure didn’t have a referral management system. We wanted to capture all communications relating to a client’s journey on one of our targeted health and wellbeing programmes and create a single point of access. Now we use ReferAll, we can demonstrate outcome achievements using evidence-based screening tools and questionnaires. As a result, we’ve identified clients are more likely to drop out at week eight, and so introduced more touch points and incentives at this time. This is all new data for us, which is informing how we proceed.”
Building a system to meet your needs
To get the best out of ReferAll’s software requires preparation:
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- Busy managers often struggle to map out the detail of their service processes to gather the necessary data. It seems natural to start from the beginning and move forward from receiving a referral, but it’s often more effective to start by asking ‘what outcome do we want to achieve and by when?’ and then working backwards. - Aligning processes with key performance indicators (KPIs) can be challenging. To break this down, managers should work closely with commissioners and programme coordinators to tailor workflows to match their KPIs. This ensures everyone is working towards the same goals and boosts programme efficiency. - Tracking tasks and deadlines is another common challenge. It’s well worth setting aside some time to create automated reminders and tasks. This promotes consistency among staff and minimises errors, helping with timely data collection. - A task isn’t much use unless it runs at the time you need it to. Here at ReferAll we call this a task trigger event. For example, creating a task to prompt a 12-week questionnaire reminder at week 11 means your team know when client’s data should be collected. This increases the likelihood of collecting information on time, with less drain on team resources. |
“Setting up our software correctly has ensured our triage team are carrying out tasks at certain points in a customer’s journey to make it smoother and more consistent,” adds Williamson. “It provides full transparency. At the touch of a button, we can obtain detailed scheme and client reports, without laboriously going through spreadsheets manually. We have already used the data to secure funding, for example for our Long COVID Exercise Rehabilitation Programme.”
Building your systems and processes from the ground upholds the key to not only extracting valuable data but also driving best practice and continuous improvement, and increasing the efficacy of services.
Checkout my Leading Change short video series which guides you through the evolving world of health referrals, blending expertise and innovation to help you enhance your health and wellbeing offering.
Until next time,
Stu
Stuart Stokes | Founder and Managing Director
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