NHS Wales implements Malinko’s e-scheduling software

NHS Wales has selected Malinko to supply its e-scheduling software to all of Wales’ community healthcare professionals.

The move follows a successful pilot as part of the nation’s new Neighbourhood District Nursing Model – a four-year research project.

Healthcare professionals can use Malinko’s mobile app to access their visit lists, moving away from paper or spreadsheet-based systems. The technology allows for the intelligent scheduling of staff by matching clinical skills with individual patients’ needs.

Visits are schedules by Malinko based on clinical priorities and travel routes are optimised to minimise travel time as much as possible. A live visit status board and staff safeguarding board also ensures real-time tracking of nurses while attending their visits.

The system has been designed to complement Electronic Care Record systems and the software is aligned with an organisation’s own clinical rules so patient care is delivered optimally and caseloads are assigned safely.

Paul Labourne, nursing officer for the Welsh Government said: “By transforming into a data-driven and transparent service, neighbourhood district nursing teams can integrate seamlessly into the broader health and social care network, and senior managers have the insight required to safely meet the needs of our communities.”

Richard Desir, director of nursing at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, added: “The contemporaneous data captured via Malinko allows us to analyse care pathways and see how we can reduce the number of patient visits to achieve our goals, including earlier discharge. We can forecast patient demand and create clear care pathways for different patient scenarios.”

The country is following in the footsteps of Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust, who used funding from NHS England and NHS Improvement to implement Malinko’s clinical e-scheduling system last month.

Rob McGovern, co-founder at Malinko, said: “We’re incredibly proud to have been selected to support Wales with a clinical system that is enabling community teams to reduce clinical risk, improve workforce planning and safely schedule and manage patients’ care (demand) and its distributed clinical workforce (capacity).

“The empirical data the Malinko system captures, holds and reports on that we make freely available will give the NHS in Wales the opportunity to safely move more clinical services out of hospital and bring care closer to home.”