British Army deploys clinical communication app to keep medics connected

The British Army has deployed a clinical communications app to keep medical staff from the Defence Medical Services connected while in the field.

The Pando app has been used to send more than 120,000 messages by deployed medial staff over the past six months. It is now live in more than 50 countries.

It connects medics in the field to their seniors and specialists in the UK, enabling them to seek advice on the best course of action, such as whether someone needs to be evacuated by helicopter.

One of the advice teams regularly used on Pando is run by the Defence Consultant Advisor in Orthopaedics.

The team regularly provides advice for medics treating injured personnel for whom evacuation may take some time. Pando allows for the secure and rapid exchange of X-Rays and guidance to ensure orthopaedic injuries get the best possible treatment in an appropriate time frame.

Lieutenant colonel Richard Booker, army GP and lead of the army trial of Pando, said: “Faster access to specialist advice for deployed personnel through Pando is improving healthcare quality, hastening medical evacuation for those who need it, and enabling others to be treated closer to the point of injury or illness, so they can safely continue their vital work on behalf of the nation.”

The trial of Pando with the British Army is part of Project LARA, an initiative to develop a suite of telemedicine capabilities to reduce the medical risk associated with the arduous nature of many military deployments.

Philip Mundy, co-founder and co-chief executive of Pando, added: “Connecting clinicians creates better healthcare. We’ve seen that throughout the NHS when teams ditch pagers and WhatsApp to embrace Pando instead. And, over the last 6 months, we’ve seen that across the world thanks to this project.

“We’re delighted to see Pando supporting our deployed medics with all manner of clinical situations and bringing gold standard care to every medical situation.”

Pando’s deployment is just one way the British forces are moving towards a more digital service. Earlier this year the Ministry of Defence selected eConsult to provide online consultations across its 124 sites, giving around 183,500 military personnel access to the online platform around the globe.

Pando was designed by clinicians and is already used by more than 60,000 NHS staff across 300 UK hospitals.

It was recently announced as part of the NHSX Clinical Communications Procurement Framework, designed to accelerate the phasing out of pagers and drive tech-enabled connectivity across the NHS.