By Steve Ranger, 16 November 2006 09:00
NEWS
Star Trek-style communicators are being used to help hospital staff work smarter at an NHS trust in Cornwall.
The Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust in Truro is using handsfree BT Managed Vocera VoIP communicators (see below for a photo of the devices in use).
The Vocera communicators allow nurses to reach staff simply by saying their name. The devices can also broadcast to a number of people, such as a team of specialists, or they can locate staff by job title or location - such as finding the nearest nurse.
This gives them the edge over mobile phones - staff don't have to remember phone numbers or scroll through screens, while paging can be slow and walkie-talkies are less discreet.
Simon Goodwin, director of IT services for the Cornwall NHS Community, told silicon.com: "If you think about what goes on on a hospital campus it's just so appropriate for the way that we work - mobile, wearable technology for a highly mobile workforce."
The Trust started using the devices in April and since then has been rolling them out to more staff. It is linking the devices to its existing workflow management system to send porters details of their next job wherever they are in the hospital.
Goodwin said: "There's been a 20 to 25 per cent productivity gain from the task management system and being able to communicate on the move via the Vocera badges. We are able to get on with the next big push because it's going well and delivering immediate benefits. The savings within the existing deployment means this pays for itself in a year."
Two hospital workers wear the wireless communicators.
The Trust is rolling out a giant wireless network with more than 500 wireless access points which the Vocera communicators and other systems use.
There are also plans to roll out the devices further, he said: "Once we've tried it in non-critical areas we'll move it to those more clinical areas - that's the long term plan. It's a great example of 21st century technology supporting 21st century healthcare."
The Trust is also working on a number of other IT projects - such as the introduction of Picture Archiving and Communication System (Pacs) to replace old-style wet film X-rays.
Goodwin said: "It's totally re-engineered the way radiology does their work. The whole process changes and their productivity goes up 25 per cent plus the obvious savings - we aren't producing films or transporting them."
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He said turnaround for images has gone down from days to the same day, and there are plans to develop it further: "We are starting to look at mobile access to the Pacs systems.
"Traditional X-rays went to fixed points [light boxes] and we've replaced that with fixed PCs but now we can provide this on a laptop that doctors can move from bedside to bedside on the ward. This is absolutely what our orthopaedic consultants want."
Much of the change is being driven by the £12bn nationwide IT refresh going on in the NHS, which Goodwin said will underpin "fundamental reforms" in the NHS.
He said: "From an IT perspective it's quite exciting. The national programme is a set of national projects that in time will put in place the systems to help care providers deliver seamless care. At a local level what we have to do is the implementation and the change management and the training. It's a massive, massive change project."
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