By
06/05/2011
New IT management systems in a busy hospital trust are helping doctors prioritise patients needs by delivering live-health information, Computing.co.uk reports.
The workforce management software installed in Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trusts enables ward staff to assess priorities based on a quick patient checkup. They can then use a tablet computer to respond to the hospital co-ordinator, who judges the urgency of treatment, and can allocate trained staff accordingly.
Before this, co-ordinators were resigned to a desk and waited for a beep to flash (or call) when a patient was in need. Unfortunately, at this time it was not possible to see what the exact problem was, as lead nurse Debbie Guy explained.
"Previously the Hospital at Night (H@N) co-ordinators, who are highly skilled clinical staff, were deskbound and had to deal with more than 1,000 calls, per site, per week," she said.
"Often they could have up to 10 bleeps waiting, with no visibility of priority. So if one of the bleeps related to a patient whose condition was critical, the implications could potentially be life threatening," she added.
In addition to assessing the severity of a patients condition, senior managers are now also able to govern the whereabouts of their staff, which provided a more "accurate record of all staff productivity".
There are plans to add more features to the system and the Trust hopes to roll it out to support additional day-time services over the next few months.
According to NUH.nhs.uk, the Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trusts employ 13,000 staff and provide healthcare services to over 2.4m residents of Nottingham.
