System C · Healthcare
Follow the journey. Change the model.
Redesigning a shared PAS model around the episode of care and the real patient journey.
Care connected around the person.
01 / problem
The problem to solve
Careflow PAS (the Patient Administration System used to manage NHS patient records and referrals) assumed that one referral belonged to one specialty. NHS workflows did not always behave that way: real patient journeys could cross clinically related specialties, creating duplicate referrals, manual workarounds and downstream reporting and migration friction.
02 / decision
The decision
Rather than add another workaround, I challenged the underlying referral model and led a redesign around the episode of care. Booking groups allowed legitimate multi-specialty care to remain within the correct episode while preserving the integrity of the shared PAS model.
03 / approach
How I approached it
I worked with NHS customers and healthcare SMEs to understand how referrals and specialty pathways operated in practice, then with Engineering, Data Migration and implementation teams to test the consequences of changing the shared product model. The solution had to solve the workflow problem without creating new reporting, migration or implementation issues for other customers.
04 / outcome
What changed
Cross Booking allowed one referral to span clinically related specialties within the same episode of care. The redesigned model reduced duplicate referrals and the associated support, reporting and migration friction, while creating a reusable capability within the shared PAS product.
05 / What I take forward
What I take forward
When the underlying product model does not match the real world, delivering more features around it compounds the problem.
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