ArticleBMJ health & care informatics2026
Impact of the Federated Data Platform's digital surgery scheduling system on elective theatre utilisation at an NHS Trust: an interrupted time series analysis.
Article in BMJ health & care informatics, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesTo evaluate the National Health Service (NHS) Federated Data Platform (FDP) Inpatient (IP) Care Coordination Solution (CCS) digital scheduling tool on elective theatre utilisation.
methodsAn interrupted time series assessed changes in theatre utilisation and cancellations following tool adoption (January 2022). Weekly data spanned 90 weeks (April 2021-December 2023). Outcomes included weekly median theatre utilisation (actual, booked and bookings per session) and the percentage of cancelled bookings. Models incorporated a 5-week lag and estimated level (step-change) and trend (slope) effects.
resultsPostintervention level and trend increases were observed for booked (β=4.40, p=0.045; β=0.26, p=0.002) and actual (β=3.98, p=0.064; β=0.23, p=0.006) utilisation. Bookings per session showed a significant level increase (β=0.34, p=0.002) with no trend change (β=0.00, p=0.790). Across the postintervention period, compared with counterfactual estimates, booked and actual utilisation were 15.0% (95% CI 13.4% to 16.5%, p<0.0001) and 12.2% (95% CI 10.8% to 13.5%, p<0.0001) higher, while bookings per session were 10.9% (95% CI 9.5% to 12.4%, p<0.0001) higher. Significant positive effects were observed for urology, general surgery, gynaecology, plastic surgery and ophthalmology. A significant upward trend in cancellation rates was associated with the introduction of the tool (β=2.1, p=0.001). DISCUSSION: Findings suggest that centralised digital scheduling tools can improve theatre capacity by enabling more efficient use of existing capacity through improved scheduling visibility. Future research should explore differences in specialty-level usage and long-term sustainability of gains.
conclusionThe introduction of the NHS FDP IP CCS product was associated with improved elective theatre utilisation.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.