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By Steve Ranger, 17 August 2006 15:20

A hospital trust is using its new wireless network to support a number of projects including digital X-rays and efficient drug dispensing.

The Royal Hospitals Trust is made up of four linked hospitals - the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children, the Royal Jubilee Maternity Service, the Royal Victoria and the Dental Hospital. It currently has a wireless network made up of 400 access points which will climb to 600 when its new digital imaging centre is operational.

Another 500 access points will be needed to cover the majority of the buildings on site, and by 2008 the hospitals could have full coverage across the 80 acre site, according to IT manager Paul Duffy.

He said: "The technology is fine but only as a means to an end. What we have to make sure is the technology is an enabler and not a sticking point." Much of the work in progress is geared around improving workflows and working practices to improve patient care.

"Part of that move towards improving flows and processes means we have more systems reliant on IT. What we are trying to do with the whole wireless thing is make sure they can retrieve that information wherever they are. The majority of what we have done we had to do because if we didn't do it we would be letting clinicians and patients down."

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One project the network has enabled is the roll out of Star Trek-style wireless communicators.

Another programme involves making digital images from its Picture Archiving and Communication System (Pacs) and letting doctors have access to images as they move around the wards.

With the old film X-rays, clinicians were forced to chose between sending the film to the ward, so a doctor could make an immediate diagnosis, or sending it to the radiologist who may be able to spot other problems.

Peter Kennedy, a consultant radiologist at the trust, explained that Pacs should end this dilemma. "We hope that all these problems are going to be [solved] by Pacs because each image can be in two places at once. It will revolutionise our ability to provide a good service."

The trust is buying 35 PCs on trolleys that doctors can use to show images wirelessly to patients on their rounds.

The wireless network - using technology from Trapeze Networks and installed by Telindus - also means doctors don't have to leave surgery to pick up information, said Dr Patricia Donnelly, director of clinical services at the trust. "An anaesthetist doesn't have to go out to a central point to get their lab results and we've got that running in some theatres now and that's a fantastic benefit," she said.

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The trust is also looking at trimming time - and thus cost - out of the dispensing of drugs, and has reduced it from a 32-step process down to 10 by using - among other things - mobile devices to check the levels of drugs held on wards. The trust aims to save £500,000 per year by reducing stocks and less waste of drugs.

Donnelly said: "We are starting to join some of the dots but you need that infrastructure, you need that framework."

Another area the trust is looking at is using wearable tags to keep track of elderly patients, thus allowing them to roam further around the hospital while remaining safe.

Duffy explained: "The technical issues are not a problem, it's the procedural issues we want to get right before any rollout."

He added: "Where IT was seen as pain before it's now seen as a must-have for [doctors] to do their jobs. We have something like 2,500 PCs and related devices and PDAs and that number is only going to increase."