NHS Fife extends use of Alcidion’s Patientrack software

NHS Fife has extended the use of Alcidion’s Patientrack early warning technology to community hospitals and paediatrics.

The Scottish regional hub, which serves a population of 370,000 resident, will deploy Patientrack across a minimum of ten hospitals including two main acute hospitals and a network of community and day hospitals, amounting to about 1,342 beds.

The extension and renewal agreement with Alcidion for an additional five-year term, will extend the board’s use of the electronic bedside monitoring system across the whole estate. Fife will build on success in its major acute hospital environments and move into its community hospitals and paediatrics specialty.

Lynette Ousby, UK general manager for Alcidion, said: “It’s a positive step to see the board extending the reach of Patientrack to more and more staff and clinical settings.

“As other NHS boards look to developments in Fife, we hope to spread achievements further, to help tackle immediate priorities, and to help Scotland deliver on national ambitions in its digital health and care strategy.”

The technology works by capturing vital signs digitally at the bedside. Patientrack then accurately calculates the patient’s early warning score and automatically calls doctors to intervene when signs of deterioration are present.

The system continues to escalate calls until patients receive an appropriate response.

NHS Fife, the first board in Scotland to go-live with the Patientrack early warning system, announced it had used the technology to help cut cardiac arrests by two thirds in its busiest hospital areas in 2016.

Alcidion also recently created a tool in Patientrack that will help nurses carry out crucial assessments designed to allow hospitals to identify coronavirus patients sooner.

Staff follow a series of questions covering symptoms, the patient’s circumstances and their physiological measurements, and will enter information directly into Patientrack via a computer or mobile device.

Specific questions will be tailored to the hospital’s own coronavirus assessment criteria and can be configured by the hospital to keep up with the evolving situation.