Data & Analytics — Capacity & Demand

Embedding a data-driven management process to drive continuous waiting list improvement

Helping one of Ireland's major teaching hospitals turn short-lived waiting list initiatives into sustained, measurable improvement — by embedding a data-driven management process in its Outpatient Department.

increase in clinic attendances: +32%
patients waiting over 6 months: -27%
months of sustained improvement: 14+

The challenge

Tallaght University Hospital (TUH) is one of Ireland's major academic teaching hospitals. With 562 beds, 16 theatres and 26 critical care beds, its 3,500 staff treat over 410,000 patients per year.

TUH had undertaken multiple initiatives to reduce waiting lists — outsourcing, the National Treatment Purchase Fund, additional clinical staff, more space. While these initiatives delivered benefits, those benefits were short-lived. Improvement kept fading once the initiative ended.

MedModus shared with TUH what we had learned were the critical success factors for sustaining improvement — and was asked to apply those lessons first in TUH's Outpatient Department (OPD).

Our approach

MedModus worked with the CEO, COO, OPD managers and clinical staff to embed a new OPD management process that, once adopted, drove continuous improvement in the selected OPD specialties.

The key features of the approach were agreeing with individual specialties what their measurable service aims were, and developing intuitive analytics dashboards that told teams at a glance if there was variation from those agreed aims.

Staff were trained in a common 'measurement for improvement' language and mindset, and managers — from the CEO down — were coached in how to run data-driven, action-focused meetings. Electronic action and project trackers gave every agreed action an owner and a deadline, and service meetings were aligned to create a bottom-up rather than top-down improvement culture.

The solution

The result was not a one-off project but a management process: analytics made variation from agreed aims visible, and a disciplined rhythm of action-focused meetings turned that insight into continuous improvement.

A new referral triage process, combined with improved coding, cut the referral backlog dramatically — while broadening the scope of practice for Advanced Nurse Practitioners increased consultant capacity without the need for further investment.

“MedModus showed us that the deployment of BI alone will fix nothing. It is the use of BI as part of a CHANGE management process that drives sustainable improvement.”

Chief Executive Officer, Tallaght University Hospital

Outcomes

What changed for the organisation once the platform was live.

+32%
increase in clinic attendances through improved capacity utilisation
-27%
fall in patients waiting over 6 months
14+ months
of sustained improvement and counting
-90%
reduction in referral backlog via a new triage process
+20%
increase in patients seen by Advanced Nurse Practitioners
No extra investment
consultant capacity released through broader scope of practice

Facing a similar challenge?

We will walk you through how this engagement was delivered and what the equivalent first phase would look like for your organisation.

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