Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital has tested out a ‘Bedside Intelligent Cabinet’ designed to store routine medicines, alert patients or guardians when medication is due, and update staff including notifying them if any medication is missed.
Through the trial, families and staff teams have shared suggestions for now the Bedside Intelligent Cabinet could be improved. Updates have included “bigger screens and better handles” for the tech and requests for future models to generate a log of all medication self-administered by the patient. A next step is to explore the possibility of syncing the software to the hospital’s electronic patient record to help automate prescription updates.
The trial, supported by NHS Grampian’s Innovation Hub, is said to tie in with the hospital’s plans to help facilitate self-administration of medicines, with medication safety advisor Lindsay Cameron commenting on the potential for self-administration to “improve patient satisfaction and confidence, encourage independence and self-care in a safe environment”, along with improving the patient’s understanding of their medication.
Nurse Anna Jenneson notes that the technology “helps us help families by empowering them to continue giving meds or get to know new medicines, supporting their routine and reassurance. It also prompts questions and helpful conversations with us nursing staff.”
Scotland in the spotlight
Last month HTN published a report exploring the landscape of digital healthcare in Scotland now and for the future, including insights from the Scottish Government, NHS National Services Scotland and Scotland’s Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre.
A key update from earlier in the year saw us take a look at the strategic framework from NHS National Services Scotland, setting out priorities through to 2026 around implementing new solutions, improving services and seeking opportunities for collaboration.
We also examined the climate emergency and sustainability strategy for 2024-2027 from NHS Education for Scotland, including focus on a ‘digital first’ approach “both to the work of its own staff and the delivery of training”.
Also on patient safety
Last month the UK government shared plans for two reviews exploring patient safety within the health system, examining firstly the roles and remits within six organisations overseen by the Department of Health and Social Care with a “significant” impact on patient safety; and secondly focusing on quality and governance.
We also explored plans around the primary care implementation of the NHS patient safety strategy, noting the role of digital and data in areas such as automatically flagging patient safety issues to support reliability, and supporting clinical decision-making by digitally embedding diagnosis advice and safety netting.
