Technology with the personal touch

Using new technology and innovative approaches to working will play a key element in hospitals adapting new ways of working to meet WTD 2009 compliance. One project using personal digital assistants (PDAs) in Middlesbrough is having a significant affect on how night shift working has been developed.

South Tees Hospitals NHS Trust developed the PDA system as part of an overall scheme to improve care with e-technology. They were keen to replace the traditional bleep system at James Cook University hospital with wireless technology that would generate, accept and interact with calls generated from the wards and allow information to be made available that would help ensure staff with the right skills can get to patients quickly.

Every junior doctor working on the Hospital at Night team is issued with a PDA, which provides them with key patient information. The call for a doctor is issued by the hospital’s night co-ordinator, who can summon an appropriate junior doctor depending on their ability, availability and proximity. All doctors – who now receive PDA training as part of their induction – respond with their current status and can also rapidly access information on the patient. The system has proved popular with staff and the trust also gains very detailed information about the number and nature of calls each night – data that will be very useful for other trusts in helping them work towards compliance.

Consultant in infectious disease and senior project leader Dr Brendan McCarron said: “We wanted to improve communications and access to clinical information at the trust for the on-call teams. The system has been a success due to the efforts of those designing the H@N rapid response system and we’ve seen a positive and helpful attitude from medical and nursing staff within the hospital when it has come to embracing the new change in working.”

Work is now underway looking at the technology used in PDA systems and how work can be developed and shared across the services in the future.

For further details please see www.ibleep.net