Context and Background
The SIMTEGR8 project came about in December 2014 when Leicestershire County Council (LCC) and Healthwatch Leicestershire approached Loughborough University, and the SIMUL8 Corporation, to discuss the evaluation of four new integrated care pathways to reduce emergency admissions in Leicestershire. The resulting partnership was successful in attracting a research grant from Loughborough University’s Enterprise fund to conduct the evaluation project during 2015/16.
The 1-year project adopted and modified the SimLean approach to evaluate the ways that emergency admissions can be reduced and to help improve the patient journey through the four selected interventions. The pathways that were examined were part of Leicestershire’s Better Care Fund (BCF) programme for 2015/16 and were community based interventions designed to avoid unnecessary emergency hospital admissions for vulnerable, frail and elderly people.
Seeing the value of using simulation in a facilitated workshop situation, a Phase II of the evaluation project has been undertaken during 2016/2017. The purpose of the 8-month evaluation project is to test the impact and effectiveness of four new integrated service interventions being piloted through the Leicestershire BCF.
For Phase II, a revised methodology of the SIMTEGR8 Phase I project was developed based on the SimLean and PartiSim approaches.