East London goes mobile

East London NHS Foundation Trust is giving its children’s services team tablets with access to the trust’s mobile patient management system while they are out in the community.

The trust is rolling out the iNurse system from Advanced Health and Care by giving tablets to 30 staff members after being awarded £108,000 in funding from the Nursing Technology Fund.

The community nursing team at the trust already use the system, but the additional tablets will be used by specialist children’s community nurses and those in the sickle-cell and thalassaemia team, the HIV team and the trust’s immunisation nurses who primarily work within schools in the London Borough of Newham.

Ian McKay, head of children’s services for the trust’s Newham service, said he hopes the tablets will reduce administrative workloads for staff and make a “positive difference.”

The efficiency of the system will substantially reduce time spent on manual administration which means our nursing teams can spend more time in the community with patients”, said McKay.

“We are confident that the roll-out of the new devices will be a complete success. Our nursing teams are looking forward to using the devices and are already talking about the potential benefits to their patients.” said McKay.

When staff go out to do school vaccinations, the children’s records have to be updated in the trust’s RiO electronic patient record system from Servelec, which was delivered by BT under the National Programme for IT.

The iNurse system means that those details are now automatically forwarded to the EPR once the staff have recorded it on the tablet.

“The funding we received from the Nursing Technology Fund has been central to financing the purchase of additional iNurse handsets,” said McKay.

“We look forward to demonstrating the benefits and return on investment we have achieved as a direct result of the funding.”