Stoke Mandeville taps into spinal software
- 9 October 2007
Staff at the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital will be able to keep track of all records electronically, after the trust signed with IMS Maxims to implement its specialist Spinal Cord Injuries software.
The software has been developed with the South Tees Hospitals NHS Trust, where it has been live for over two years. Having seen the system in use, Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust has now agreed to take up the system at its spinal injuries centre.
Dr Ali Jamous, consultant neurologist, and chair of the National Spinal Injuries Centre, told E-Health Insider: “With the system, at any one time, any physician will be able to look at what has been done and the overall patient journey. It will provide a complete overall picture of the patient’s treatment, and will mean that each discipline within the centre will no longer have to keep paper-written notes for every session they have with a patient. It will be smoother, safer and clinically better – ensuring we have a patient’s complete history at our fingertips instead of flapping through streams of paperwork”
The Spinal Cord Injuries system is designed to track the spinal injuries patient pathway from the initial event leading to the spinal injury, through inpatient admissions and onwards into outpatients including specialist outpatient appointments such as erectile dysfunction and fertility clinics.
It takes an inter-disciplinary approach, supporting information from medical, nursing, therapists, social workers and psychologists. The system is delivered with many detailed forms and offers the flexibility to be extended using the site defined structured and graphical assessments functionality.
Dr Jamous said: “The system has been very useful in James Cook University Hospital and we want to work with them to tailor the system to ensure it meets all needs for spinal injuries care. This will of course involve a whole new way of working for so many of our staff, so we will be phasing it out to ensure it is understood by all and is clinically safe.”
Information is accessible and shared across disciplines, allowing ease of access to all users. Access to relevant entries is rapid, efficient and importantly legible.
Summary of the neurological status is immediately available and relevant past medical history is there at the drop of a menu. Accurate discharge summaries are automatically prepared from operational data, significantly reducing the potential for error and improving completeness.
Dr Jamous plans to provide all clinical staff with laptops so they can record data immediately.
“In this day and age, it’s essential that we move staff to the digital era and with the introduction of electronic patient records we felt we should do the same. As the centre is so specialist in its work, we are going to put in a wireless Bluetooth network and enabled networks so that data can be entered as it is diagnosed, ensuring the most accurate records possible. This could take several months yet”
As the system is web-based, it will be accessible from any part of the hospital, to authorised users and will enable faster treatment advice for clinicians who are working remotely, avoiding unnecessary adverse reactions.
David Griffiths, divisional general manager at Stoke Mandeville Hospital said: “We have taken great interest in developments at South Tees and applaud both the investment and the collaborative venture between James Cook University Hospital and IMS Maxims. Following several visits and discussions with staff at the Golden Jubilee Regional Spinal Injuries Centre at the James Cook University Hospital, we are confident that the system will provide the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville with a robust and functionally rich system that will more than meet our current and future needs.”
Dr Jamous believes that once fully configured, the system could be the national solution for the 12 spinal injuries centres in England.
“My aspiration is to have all the spinal treatment centres come on board and take the system as it, so that we can work on it together and create the best national spinal injuries software possible that meets all the needs of all the disciplines and formalities involved in this specialty.”
Shane Tickell, head of sales and marketing at IMS Maxims said: “This is a great example of the new web based Maxims application being used to fully support clinical specialist and multidisciplinary requirements.”
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