REALIZING THE BENEFITS OF RESOURCE-MANAGEMENT

In 1988 Inverclyde Royal Hospital became the pilot site for the resour ce management initiative in Scotland. Real benefits have been achieved through the implementation of an information system which allows doct ors to closely monitor every aspect of health care in the hospital, en abling them to continually reassess and evaluate their own work. The a bility of doctors to use the clinical information system to fulfil ope rational requirements, such as the production of automated discharge s ummaries, whilst supporting the medical audit process through the same dataset has been a major achievement. Within the hospital the creatio n of an 'information flow' has been helpful to all clinical and medica l records staff and at the same time has produced patient based inform ation to support the management process. The availability of over four years of fully costed activity data is a considerable advantage for t he Unit as Trust status approaches.