Ashford and St Peter’s adopts digital writing technology for new Maternity Pathway Tariff26 March 2013 Ashford and St Peter’s NHS Foundation Trust in Surrey, UK, has installed digital writing technology and smartphones in its maternity department to help it comply with the the UK Department of Health's new Maternity Pathway Tariff, which comes into effect on 1 April, 2013. The Trust is using Anoto's digital writing technology in combination with DevelopIQ’s PaperIQ platform and Blackberry smartphones to record Payment by Results (PbR) and Maternity Pathway Tariff data and share it electronically reducing the amount of paper work. Information is now shared digitally with governing bodies at the touch of a button. Under the new Maternity Pathway Tariff, the maternity pathway is split into three periods: antenatal, birth and postnatal episodes. At the start of each period, the expectant mother will be assessed and assigned a level of care, after which the trusts will receive one payment per period based on the assessment treatment level. These are set to Standard, Intermediate and Intensive. Once the assessment is complete, each Trust is responsible for determining how many visits the expecting mothers will make during the course of the pregnancy and the type of treatment that they will receive. “With the NHS mandatory maternity activity coding changing in April 2013, we decided to meet this challenge by procuring a digital pen solution that will allow midwives to capture risk assessment data for expectant mothers. Without this information, the Trust could be paid at a lower tariff for high risk patients, leading to a substantial loss of income,” said Ashford St. Peter’s NHS Foundation Trust’s Head of Informatics Programme Management, Laura Ellis-Philip. “Maternity units across the UK will need to comply to both the PbR and Maternity Pathway Tariff by 1st of April, leading to a major shift in the way trusts are being paid and the way in which they need to collect information to ensure they are receiving the correct payments,” says DevelopIQ business development manager, Claire Brookes-Daniels. Other trusts using the system include Sheffield Hospitals Teaching NHS Foundation Trust, Leicester NHS Foundation Trust and Northumbria NHS Foundation Trust.
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