Cross-department Benchmarks and Covid-19 Data
March 2021
Introduction
The Spring 2021 edition of Rotamap's benchmarking data packs has been sent out to our client departments, covering the period from March 2020 to April 2021. These packs allow departments using Medirota or CLWRota to examine their service delivery broken down into components – such as extra and solo (unsupervised trainee led) sessions – and compare this with data from departments of similar specialities.
Typically, an important focus of our benchmarking analysis is on variation in the data, which gives an indication on the stability of service delivery. Given the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic over the last year, however, sudden changes and large variation in the data are to be expected. To provide insight on these changes, we have also included reports showing how cancellations, sick leave and the balance of in-hours and out-of-hours work have varied within departments since March 2020.
Benchmark boxplots
Our boxplots allow us to compare all departments within a cohort on their week-to-week distribution of a given metric. Each box represents one department and aggregates up to 52 points of weekly data, showing outlier weeks as dots above or below the box.
For departments using CLWRota (anaesthetics departments), the boxplots measure the proportion of all DCC (direct clinical care) work carried out as extra or solo sessions, as well as the count of DCC sessions carried out as a percentage of the work that was planned.
In general, the variation (size of boxes) seen in the plots is greater than on previous years due to large changes occurring between April and July 2020, when many departments' recorded solo and extra sessions dropped as their rotas were re-written to deal with Covid-19. Since the measure of "Achieved / Planned" is not generally applicable to this period of rota re-planning, that plot covers the period from October 2020 to April 2021 only.
CLWRota
Since Medirota is used by teams across many different specialties, we report on surgical departments separately to those in medical specialties. We show the proportion of sessions that are covered as extra, as well as those that are cancelled. Note that many of these are small departments; this, combined with the effect of Covid-19, means that the median values were zero for many departments.
Medirota
Covid-19 impact across the UK
We have previously reported on the impact of Covid-19 on our UK client hospital departments and the graphs below extend some of this analysis to April 2021. The graphs show that whether we look at the amount of sick leave, the amount of cancelled sessions or the relative increase in work that is done out of hours, the impact of the pandemic during the first few months of 2021 has been greatly attenuated relative to the first UK wave in April 2020.
CLWRota
Medirota
Data packs
Departments in anaesthetics, surgical and medical specialties which have enough CLWRota or Medirota data to be included in the reports above will be sent a personalised pack shortly after the publication of this article. These packs include department-level data and identify the department within its cohort.
If you have any questions about your pack or about the data above, please contact the Rotamap support team at support@rotamap.net or +44 (0) 20 7631 1555.