UHBW enhance affected person security with digital innovation from System C
Pioneering use of digital medical noting from System C has enabled College Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Basis Belief’s busy paediatric Emergency Division (ED) at Bristol Royal Hospital for Kids (BRHC) to cut back reliance on paper types.
The brand new digital processes, powered by System C’s CareFlow Medical Noting, have halved the time it takes to triage sufferers, guaranteeing care is directed quickly on the sickest kids.
In an extra increase to affected person care and security, the rollout of a brand new digital Casualty card (Cas card) is reworking documentation and communication across the hospital – with important effectivity and time-saving advantages.
Bristol Royal Hospital for Kids, the one paediatric main trauma centre in South West England, offers a variety of specialist paediatric surgical procedure and consultancy providers and has 10 wards, an intensive care unit and a Paediatric Emergency Division (ED).
UHBW’s determination to introduce the brand new system in paediatric ED was based mostly on the division’s key function as an entry level to the hospital and by the growing demand in ED, which is placing extra strain on stretched assets and doubtlessly impacting affected person security.
In winter 2022, with a Group A Strep (Scarlet Fever) outbreak alongside peaks in Covid-19, RSV, and influenza, the Paediatric ED noticed the typical numbers of sufferers within the ready room rise constantly and surge by as much as 300% at instances.
With out digital medical noting and enhancements in triage processes, affected person care would have been compromised.
Mark Lyttle, advisor and senior analysis fellow in Kids’s Emergency Care at UHBW, mentioned: “Infections and occasions akin to power bronchial asthma assaults can shortly escalate in kids, so triaging sufferers and alerting a clinician as shortly as potential is important.
“However the hazard indicators can simply go undetected in a busy ED surroundings, particularly when the ready room is full and the triage course of is reliant on time-intensive kind filling and a gradual course of, creating threat to probably the most critically in poor health kids.
“Placing digital notes on the coronary heart of the triage course of has had a major affect on how shortly we determine and deal with sufferers who want quick intervention. This innovation is an enormous enchancment on earlier practices, permitting us to triage sufferers far more shortly and flag and deal with these most in danger.”
CareFlow developed with hospital wants in thoughts
CareFlow Medical Noting has changed paper or digital proforma and the crew developed the Triage Particulars display screen to be particular to their sufferers, incorporating the Manchester Triage System – the score-based medical threat administration software utilized in EDs to make sure that sufferers are seen so as of medical precedence, relatively than order of attendance.
Nurses now observe prompts on an digital kind, coming into information and key observations of the affected person’s situation that may mechanically set off any potential alerts (e.g. a excessive temperature or breathlessness).
This course of, coupled with the introduction of CareFlow Vitals, minimises free textual content information assortment and removes the motion of paper across the ED. This protects time and improves the standard of information captured throughout triage.
Utilizing digital techniques means very important data can now be captured and displayed in actual time, so crucial information concerning the affected person’s situation might be seen and acted on at once. Display screen alerts instantly flag up areas of concern, akin to sepsis threat, notifying the medical crew {that a} specific affected person wants emergency consideration.
The profitable rollout has greater than halved triage instances, saving over 10 minutes per affected person. Additional enhancements are deliberate to convey triage to lower than 4 minutes per affected person.
The introduction of the Cas card has prolonged noting functionality to all ED medical documentation. Capturing important data electronically at every key state of the affected person journey implies that as an alternative of transferring paper types by hand, the Cas card electronically ‘follows’ the affected person all through the ED and remark unit.
Knowledge is up to date in actual time on the affected person’s digital Cas card to create an end-to-end digital pathway, enabling visibility of crucial medical data, and monitoring and administration of all interactions throughout the completely different care settings – for instance, ED to acute inpatient, theatres, X-Ray or ICU.
To this point it has been used over 20,000 instances and has acquired quite a few situations of optimistic suggestions.
Max Ward, head of medical techniques at UHBW, mentioned: “In ED you don’t at all times see issues coming, however this enchancment has helped to make us prepared for the longer term and enabled us to efficiently handle sudden quantity peaks.
“Since its introduction, it has already delivered large advantages when it comes to affected person movement, information reporting, push-pull information streams, determination making and offering set off warnings.
“We’ll be constructing on this initiative within the subsequent part of our digitisation plan to create a extra holistic view of the entire affected person journey and rework the best way individuals entry our healthcare providers.”
System C is a significant provider in acute EPRs with 30 NHS Trusts.
