Accolades for clinical and IT collaboration

NHS Connecting for Health has awarded five accolades to NHS organisations for their work in improving patient led services where clinicians, IT and information teams have worked together.

The accolades went to:

South Tees NHS Trust for its Hospital at Night (H @ N) rapid response system. Every junior doctor who is part of the trust’s on-call system has a PDA which links to the trust’s PAS. The rapid response system is kicked into operation by a night sister relaying a call to a PDA carried by a junior doctor selected on the basis of ability, availability and proximity.

Roy Walters, systems analyst for South Tees NHS Trust, said: "The system has changed the way we’re perceiving medicine carried out at night. The change has been quite phenomenal. Acceptance was initially quite slow but now we’re getting very clear concise data relayed to the doctor so they can prioritise their workload accordingly.There is now trust-wide acceptance amongst the junior doctors that this is the way we should continue working."

Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust for a system which aids the early identification and management of the sick patient. Bedside technology is used to improve patient assessments and enables vital information to be shared.

Kate Stewart, sister at Portsmouth Hospital NHS Trust said: “When we started we had mixed feedback, some nurses didn’t want to use it and some were very keen. We’ve gradually overcome the hurdled along the way and now nurses want to use it, they’re using it automatically. The clouds have lifted and life’s a lot easier."

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust for its e-learning strategy for the emergency Department called ENLIGHTENME. Staff at the trust have developed innovative online teaching modules to tackle the challenge of delivering staff education at the same time as meeting tough performance targets in the emergency department.

The Renal Patient View Project received for work to give renal patients on line access to their patient information. They can log on to see their own results and other information held in their renal unit’s electronic patient record. There is also information about their specific renal condition and the treatment they are receiving.

Cherry Bartlett, renal informatics manager at St James Hospital, Leeds, a member of the project’s steering group accepted the accolade saying, "Patients love what we’ve done. 1500 patients have signed up to this across the country."

Dr Jacqueline Masterton and partners of Streatham, south London for a text messaging service that has cut ‘did not attend’ rates by 38% overall and saved time and money for the GP surgery. A recent check on a single week found an 80% reduction compared to the same week last year.

The scheme is in its third year and the 2006 awards scheme focused on “Clinical Informatics Partnership.”

Links

NHS Leadership in Health – Information Accolades Scheme 2006

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