Industry news in brief

This month’s industry round up features news that an independent association for social care software providers has been established, as well as Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust saving 600 hours per month using Allocate’s e-rostering system.

Independent association for social care software providers established

A new association for the care software industry have announced the establishment of the Care Software Providers Association (CASPA), an independent association representing the views and interests of social care software providers.

The objectives of CASPA are:

• The promotion and continued growth of the use of digital technologies in the social care sector to improve the quality of care delivered
• Promoting advances in the digital information flow across social care to provide openness and transparency of care being provided
• Lobbying parties outside social care to improve the digital information flow between social care and others, in particular the NHS
• Creating standards, such as those for electronic information transfer, where such standards do not currently exist

The association will present members’ views when making representations to government and other agencies; when reviewing policy or legislation; and when seeking the wider views of the business community. 

Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust employs Bittium SafeMove

Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust has chosen Bittium SafeMove secure connectivity software to give its 2,000 community nurses secure remote access to clinical systems.

The software allows nurses to access clinical information from their own devices.

David Brown, associate director of IT at the Global Digital Exemplar (GDE) trust, said: “By reducing the number of steps to get connected and removing the need to enter complex tokens on mobile devices, Bittium SafeMove has significantly improved the user experience.

“Our users now have secure, simple and reliable access to the Trust’s network when providing care in patients’ homes.

“This will translate to better patient outcomes, which, of course is our primary goal within Worcestershire Health and Care.”

Change Healthcare implements multiple systems for Cambridge University Hospitals

Change Healthcare has successfully implemented its Radiology PACS, Image Repository and Workflow Intelligence solution for Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) NHS Foundation Trust, replacing its existing PACS at Addenbrooke’s Hospital.

CUH’s acting imaging operations manager, James, Brennan, said: “The functionality of the technology has impressed our team as has the implementation process. We are eager to see the benefits of the solutions in the coming months.”

Ray Cahill, VP international and Change Healthcare, added: “We are delighted to see our enterprise imaging solutions go live at CUH, following a very successful implementation process and marking the start of what will be an excellent technology partnership between us.

“CUH is one of the largest and best-known trusts in the country, so we are delighted to be working so closely together to support its enterprise imaging capabilities.”

Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust selects Allocate for new rostering system

Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust has selected Allocate’s e-rostering software HealthRoster to roll out a new rostering system, which will save about 600 hours per month.

The trust’s vision is to use the system to roster and plan its 7,000 staff, 95% of which work at Queen Alexandra Hospital.

Around 150 different rosters are created in the hospital, with each four-week roster usually taking senior nurses 7-8 hours to complete. With the new system, the trust anticipates it will take just 1-2 hours, delivering significant time savings.

The e-rostering system can integrate with the trust’s temporary and seasonal staff system, and its internal staff database.

The latter is a critical requirement for Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust due to the numerous changes each month from staff departures and new hires.

HealthRoster will be complemented with Allocate’s Me App, an easy-to-use app which enables staff to interact with the rostering system from their mobile phone.

They can check their own and their team’s rosters, leave and study information on the move as well as book temporary shifts or submit availability to work more shifts.

Visionable officially launches in the UK

Visionable, the healthcare technology company providing a single video collaboration platform, has announced its official launch in the UK.

Previously known as IOCOM during its development phase, Visionable is already powering multiple innovative clinician-led schemes across the country and is used by over 100 separate NHS organisations to deliver better patient care.

This includes Visionable’s collaboration with the East of England to improve stroke treatment, estimated to have saved over 3,200 lives, and work with the North West London Cancer Network to bring together time-pressed clinicians and pathologists in multi-disciplinary teams.

Mental health trust cuts patient falls using technology

A clinical study by Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust has shown that the use of Oxehealth’s Digital Care Assistant has significantly reduced falls across its dementia patient wards.

The study, which ran from March to October last year, found:

• 33% fewer falls at night than in the same period of 2017
• 71% reduction in time spent by nurses on enhanced observations; a time saving of 7,800 hours per year for the hospital
• The falls that did take place were less severe: more than half did not result in harm to the patient.

The Digital Care Assistant uses software to enable an optical sensor to detect activity and measure the vital signs of patients in bedrooms.

This sends an alert to a central monitor when a patient is on the edge of their bed or getting out of bed, which enables staff to react quickly and take preventative action.

If there is a fall, staff can also use the Digital Care Assistant to replay a short video of the incident, turning an unwitnessed fall into a witnessed one, and avoiding the need for invasive observations if no head injury occurred.

NHS Glasgow goes live with remote physiotherapy consultations

Remote video consultations on physiotherapy for patients with respiratory conditions have now gone live in the north sector of Greater Glasgow and Clyde (GGC).

Accessing the service through an app from a phone, PC, or tablet allows the patient to remain at home or work and get the physiotherapy advice and support they need for their condition.

William Edwards, director of eHealth at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, said: “This is one of a number of virtual consultation projects we are in the process of introducing this year.

“As well as being able to remain at home or work one of the other key benefits for patients is the ability for others to join the ‘consultation remotely’.

“Patients can have a family member who lives elsewhere in the country or abroad join their consultation.

“This new approach is part of the expanding use of video consultations across hospital and community services in GGC with funding provided from the Scottish Governments Technology Enabled Care Programme.”

Karantis360 and IBM Watson team up on assisted care

UK care management start up Karantis360 has turned to IBM Watson to help build a new solution that uses sensors and artificial intelligence running in the IBM Cloud to enable people who need assistance to live more independently in their own homes.

They developed a new approach that uses Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to collect data about the movements and day-to-day activities of people in care.

The solution uses IBM Watson analytics and machine learning capabilities to identify and learn an individual’s typical behaviour.

Using a mobile app, caregivers and family members are able to receive a more complete picture of the wellbeing of the person in care and receive alerts about changes in normal daily routine which could point to a potential problem.

The system also aims to provide valuable insights to help service providers improve care and treatment plans.

Nearly half of NHS acute trusts do not have a transformation plan

Research from Transforming Healthcare Consultancy has revealed 44% of NHS acute trusts do not have a formal transformation plan.

Transformation plans cover a wide range of initiatives and programmes including service development, system implementations and consolidation of services delivery. They focus towards delivering improvements in patient outcomes, increases in service efficiency and reductions in service delivery costs.

Stephen Seagreen-Bell, managing director at Transforming Healthcare Consultancy said that the absence of transformation plans at provider level was not surprising:

He said: “In our experience the reason many NHS providers do not have a transformation plan in place is because they are working towards a wider strategic roadmap to improve services and patient care. Although useful for setting a vision for change, these tend to be aspirational and do not address the practicalities of on-the-ground transformation.”