myopnotes: data driven digital health technology in surgery to improve patient outcomes, save surgeons’ time, and optimise reimbursement for NHS hospitals

OpNoteLtd is a UK-based healthtech SME with a core-team of Rajen Nagar(CEO/entrepreneur), Grant Nolan (NHS surgeon), Kieran Oldham (CTO), Sue Eve-Jones(Medical Coder) and Martin Woolley (Regulation/Commercial). OpNoteLtd is part of Propel@YH, Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber's digital accelerator for innovative healthcare start-ups.

NHS hospitals perform millions of surgeries. Operation notes are how surgeries are documented. Written by the operating surgeon immediately after finishing the procedure, these mandatory, medico-legal documents capture vital information like procedure details, crucial intra-operative decisions, and post-operative plans.

Due to the surgeon needing to start operating on the next patient on the theatre list, operation notes are the main way that surgeons communicate essential information for the ongoing care of a patient to other healthcare professionals like nurses, physiotherapists and other doctors. Despite many advancements in surgical techniques, operation notes have hardly changed. Some are still handwritten.

Currently, surgeons write a paragraph explaining what occurred during the operation. Scientific studies have shown this results in inaccurate or inadequate detail. Illegible handwriting makes things worse. Inaccurate/incomplete operation notes have the following ramifications:

* Negatively impacts patient care. Omissions and ambiguity means other healthcare professionals are not given full instructions. 'Double checking' creates inefficiency. * Lack of standardisation, making it difficult for healthcare professionals and medical coders to find key details. * Under-payment for NHS hospitals.

NHS hospitals are paid for the services they deliver via Operating Procedure Codes Supplement (OPCS-codes) . These are assigned by an administrator who specialises in hospital billing ('medical coder') solely from the notes. The surgeon is not involved.

Due to inaccurate documentation, 57-67% of OPCS-codes are incorrect. Hospitals are underpaid per surgery by over £100 or £1.5Billion nationally. Overpayment for procedures is rare, due to a robust audit process and penalty fines for offending Trusts.

This chronic underpayment of revenues affects NHS hospital's abilities to deliver surgeries while waiting lists are long and growing. Surgeons are extremely busy, and current IT systems hinder them easily recording high-quality data on operation notes (when not handwritten).

Addressing these issues, **my**opnotes novel technology standardises the note-writing process for surgeons, creating high-accuracy documentation which benefits patients. By automatically assigning OPCS-codes, **my**opnotes ensures so hospitals are fairly paid for the surgeries they perform.

Within 5-years, **my**opnotes aims to enable hospitals to legitimately claim an additional £76M which is rightfully owed. The improved documentation reduces risks associated with 5.8M NHS operations, significantly improving patients' health outcomes through clear communication with healthcare professionals.