Welcome to the Right Decision Service (RDS) newsletter for August 2024.
Following the recent RDS outages, Tactuum and the RDS team have been reviewing the learning from these incidents. We are committed to doing all we can to ensure a positive outcome by strengthening the RDS to make it fully robust and clinically resilient for the future.
We would like to invite you to a webinar on 26th September 3-4 pm on national and local contingency planning for future RDS outages. Tactuum and the RDS team will speak about our business continuity plans and the national contingency arrangements we are putting in place. This will also be a space to share local contingency plans, ideas and existing good practice. We would also like to gather your views on who we should send communications to in the event of future outages.
I have sent a meeting request for this date to all editors – please accept or decline to indicate attendance, and please forward on to relevant contacts. You can also contact Olivia.graham@nhs.scot directly to register your interest in participating.
2.National IV fluid prescribing calculator
This UK CA marked calculator is now live at https://righdecisions.scot.nhs.uk/ivfluids . It has been developed by a multiprofessional steering group of leads in IV fluids management, as part of the wider Modernising Patient Pathways Programme within the Centre for Sustainable Delivery. It aims to address a known cause of clinical error in hospital settings, and we hope it will be especially useful to the new junior doctors who started in August.
Please do spread the word about this new calculator and get in touch with any questions.
The following toolkits are now live;
We have updated and simplified this guidance within our standard operating procedures. We have clarified the guidance on how to determine whether an RDS tool is a medical device, and have provided an interactive powerpoint slideset to steer you through the process.
We have developed a guide to support editors and toolkit leads through the process of scoping, designing, delivering, quality assuring and implementing a new RDS toolkit. We hope this will help in project planning and in building shared understanding of responsibilities throughout the full development process. The guide emphasises that the project does not end with launch of the new toolkit. Implementation, communication and evaluation are ongoing activities throughout the lifetime of the toolkit.
To book a place, please contact Olivia.graham@nhs.scot, providing your name, organisation, job role, and level of experience with RDS editing (none, a little, moderate, extensive.)
7 Evaluation projects
Dr Stephen Biggart from NHS Lothian has kindly shared with us the results of a recent survey of use of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh Anaesthesia toolkit. This shows that the majority of consultants are using it weekly or monthly, mainly to access clinical protocols, with a secondary purpose being education and training purposes. They tend to find information by navigating by specialty rather than keyword searching, and had some useful recommendations for future development, such as access to quick reference guidance.
We’d really appreciate you sharing any other local evaluations of RDS in this way – it all helps to build the evidence base for impact.
If you have any questions about the content of this newsletter, please contact his.decisionsupport@nhs.scot If you would prefer not to receive future newsletters, please email Olivia.graham@nhs.scot and ask to be removed from the circulation list.
With kind regards
Right Decision Service team
Healthcare Improvement Scotland
The main contact for this toolkit is ggc.bloodtransfusionrds@ggc.scot.nhs.uk
NHSGGC Library Network provides library and information services to all staff working within NHSGGC and its partner organisations.
Tactuum is a software company based in Glasgow, with an office in the US. Tactuum’s mission is to improve healthcare services through the delivery of digital services supporting healthcare providers and patients.
Content has been checked for accessibility in line with the relevant RDS standard operating procedure
The app:
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The Editorial Team monitors content on an ongoing basis and reviews content upon agreed review dates.
Key content suppliers can notify the Editorial Team of required updates to to any published/linked resources as and when needed. The Editorial Team will approve non guideline content and can do this outwith scheduled group meetings.
RDS automated alerts when review is due will be sent to the Editorial Team.
Unless otherwise indicated, copyright in this toolkit is retained by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. Users may download or print copies for their own use.
All icons are from Flaticon.com, accessed through the licence held Tactuum Ltd for the resources supported by the software platform it provides.
The content within this toolkit is based on current evidence and best practice, however it is intended to be applied alongside sound practitioner judgement. As such, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is not responsible or liable for management decision made on the basis of the information provided via this toolkit.
Use of this toolkit within education settings should always be in accordance with local policies and guidance with regard to practice and mobile device usage.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is not responsible for the content of any external websites listed, nor do they endorse any commercial product or service mentioned or advised on in any of these websites.
This toolkit forms part of the NHSGGC Digital Strategy. We have established an Editorial Team to oversee development and maintenance of this toolkit. The content of this toolkit was reviewed by the Editorial Team and signed off by the GGC Overarching Transfusion Committee (July 2024).
The Editorial Team will continue to oversee the development and management of the toolkit and request further approval from the Overarching Transfusion Committee as required.
The email for the Editorial Team is available in the "Key contacts" section above and can be used to highlight any feedback or complaints.
The Editorial Team will address the feedback. If it requires significant amendments to this toolkit it will be presented to the GGC Overarching Transfusion Committee for approval.
All content has been approved by the Editorial Team and the Overarching Transfusion Committee to ensure its accuracy and to mitigate any risks to patient safety. A hazard log has been developed to identify any new existing and new risks which may emerge as the toolkit is further developed.
Functional testing was carried out by the Editorial Team and Knowledge Manager as content was added. The toolkit (app and web version) was subject to end user testing (a combination of goal and experience questions) for several weeks in the run up to the toolkit being published. Volunteers were multidisciplinary and included doctors, nurses, biomedical scientists, laboratory staff and students. Feedback was gathered using Webropol and any suggested improvements were made.
GGC - Blood Transfusion