Royal Liverpool creates A&E app

Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust has developed a mobile app to give staff access to emergency procedure guidelines.

In partnership with mobile app company Appitized, trust staff have developed the app called ‘The Royal Liverpool Emergency Medicine Handbook’, in order to reduce response time in emergency situations.

Consultant in emergency medicine at the trust, Dr Rehman Raj, said the app is the first of its kind and supplies trainees with information on how to manage acute emergency situations.  

“It links in with local, regional and national guidelines and, via the contents management system, also allows trust policies to be viewed. It can also be easily updated with push notifications sent out to all users,” he said.

Users of the app can search for key words and phrases bringing up relevant information and guidelines on how to cope with the situation.

Staff can also bookmark sections of the app and create a personal list of what they find useful.

The guide is built on evidence based medicine and links in with local, regional and national guidelines and aims to ensure that investigations and appropriate referrals are made.

Although it has been created specifically for clinicians and students working at Royal Liverpool, it can also be scaled for future use in other trusts and departments.

The app was launched in November and since then it has been downloaded by more than 15% of staff and students at the trust, and has become a part of the hospital training procedure.

The trust encourages users of the app to report feedback on usability which will be taken into consideration when the app is updated. The app is free to access.