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Xyla Elective Care is the largest provider of echocardiograms in England. During the 6 months between October 2021 and March 2022 almost 40,000 echocardiograms were performed by our workforce, to support the NHS with additional capacity.
As part of our managed echocardiography service we perform regular quality audits, the results of which are fed back to our clients as part of the quality assurance process.
Audits of the echo services we provide are performed quarterly to ensure the quality of scans and reports are of a high standard, they adhere to standard templates and to the requirements of service users. Any additional training needs highlighted from the audit results are fed back to the echocardiographer and followed up by our Training and Development Lead. Xyla Elective Care audit all red cases (i.e. cases with important or new severe findings), plus a random selection of at least 5% of the total cases. All new operators have 10% of their studies audited and all echocardiographers are equally and proportionally audited.
Xyla Elective Care’s internal quality management system rates the studies using a multi-factorial tool in alignment with the BSE Echo Quality Framework (EQF, Masani, N, 2018) including,
- Adherence to patient demographics
- Relevant images recorded
- Images optimised appropriately
- All measurements performed accurately
- Report is accurate and appropriately graded severity
- Conclusion is concise and relevant
- Onward recommendations are appropriate
The audit produces a percentage score.
In 2021, our team of accredited echocardiographers performed more than 55,000 scans over approximately 50 sites. Our auditors checked over 2,750 scans for compliance. The results were as follows:
- Mean audit score: 93.68%
- Range: 77.32 – 99.58%
- Median: 94.05%
There were two audits which fell below 85% over the year. The reasons for the quality drop were immediately investigated and an action plan put into place. Both sites reached the satisfactory benchmark the following month.
Our patient satisfaction scores are consistently high and below are a few of the comments we received in the last survey:
“The lady who did the echocardiogram was so kind and caring, explaining everything that she was doing.
Explained the procedure, ensured I was comfortable during the procedure, completed quickly and efficiently and explained the next steps.
It all went well, on-time, courteous, efficient, friendly – what more do you want!”
The audit and patient satisfaction scores reflect the excellence of our echocardiographers' work and demonstrates they really care about the service they provide.
If you would be interested in joining our nationwide, permanent team of echocardiographers please click here. Our current vacancies include Quality Lead, Regional Lead Echocardiographers (West Midlands and London) and Highly Specialised Echocardiographers (various locations). If you require additional capacity, please click here for more information.
References
- Masani N. (2018). The Echocardiography Quality Framework: a comprehensive, patient centred approach to quality assurance and continuous service improvement. Echo research and practice.
- NHS England, Monthly Diagnostics Data: Statistics » Monthly Diagnostics Data 2021-22 (england.nhs.uk)
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