Avoiding Hospital Admissions HIT review for 2015-16

Professor Sarah Purdy and Dr Peter Goyder, Directors of the Integration to Avoid Hospital Admissions Health Integration Team (ITHAcA HIT), gives an update on the HIT’s activities in 2015-16.

Dr Peter Goyder, Urgent Care Clinical Lead at Bristol
Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), is now co-leading the Integration to Avoid
Hospital Admissions (ITHAcA) HIT with Professor Sarah Purdy. With both an
academic and commissioning lead, ITHAcA has continued to work closely with
clinical and commissioning colleagues in urgent care.

We received funding from the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute
to explore the introduction of a frailty toolkit in primary care, in
collaboration with South Gloucestershire CCG. We have also received funding
from the Avon Primary Care Research Collaborative to develop a tool to measure
when an admission has been avoided with Bristol and South Gloucestershire CCGs.
We have also applied to NIHR CLAHRC West for a project to support Bristol CCG
in implementing the ‘joint front door’ service at the Bristol Royal Infirmary.

We are working with the Child Injury HIT on a Red Cross-funded
qualitative study to understand more about helping patients decide when to seek
help. We have also teamed up with the Respiratory Infections HIT and the
physics department at the University of Bristol, to look at developing a primary care device to rapidly detect
antibiotic resistance in common bacteria, using nano-sensor technology. We are
keen to see whether such a device could lead to reduced repeat consultations
for urinary tract infections in elderly people, reducing the avoidable hospital
admissions for this group.

A new strategic focus for ITHAcA will be to look at social
care interventions and how we can support health and social care commissioning.
There’s a lack of evidence around these interventions, and this is an area
where we could add value.

www.bristolhealthpartners.org.uk/ithaca