A digital diagnostics pathway for severe asthma has been launched in NHS Humber and North Yorkshire with an aim of speeding up diagnosis and treatment.
The Storm Diagnostics pathway, which can be deployed across community diagnostics centres, GP practices, and hospital settings, streamlines referrals from district general hospitals and automates clinical steps.
Prof Mike Crooks, clinical lead for Humber and North Yorkshire Respiratory Network, said it was a priority to get patients with severe asthma onto the right treatment as quickly as possible.
‘The traditional pathway has inherent delays, and we were actively seeking a solution to streamline our processes. This solution provides our multi-disciplinary team with the tools we need to manage referrals more efficiently, make faster decisions, and ultimately improve outcomes for our patients across the region,’ said Prof Crooks.
Previously, patients with severe, uncontrolled asthma required a referral to a specialist severe asthma centre for assessment by a multi-disciplinary team (MDT), which required cross-organisational data sharing that could cause delays.
Storm Diagnostics digitises the clinical workflow and connects referring sites, including York and Scarborough NHS Foundation Trust and Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust, with the central specialist hub.
It enables virtual vetting of cases, automates data collection, and optimises the MDT’s referral-to-treatment decision process, and hopes to reduce the need for unnecessary face-to-face appointments and duplicate tests.
A report last year from the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Diagnostics highlighted the lack of digital tools to streamline diagnostic pathways, improve efficiency and address data interoperability between care settings.
