Mark Singleton, Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s CDIO, has shared details of digital developments at the trust, including the launch of eObservations and the replacement of an ageing bleep system.
Taking to LinkedIn, Singleton noted that eObservations are now live in the emergency department, allowing for vital signs to be captured digitally using iPads, and for results to be made available to clinical teams in real time. He added: “This is a significant step forward in improving the visibility of patient information, supporting faster clinical decision-making and helping ensure our patients receive the best possible care.”
Singleton moved on to recognise the “tremendous” amount of work put into the launch by teams ahead of the go-live date, as well as the input of emergency department colleagues, digital teams, and partners, in preparing the trust for the milestone.
In a separate post, the CDIO talked about the trust’s recent move from an “ageing” bleep system to Alertive, allowing secure messages and digital alerts to be sent to smartphones by staff or via the trust’s systems. These include notifications that results are ready to be viewed, or notifications on a patient’s deterioration.
Thanking teams again for their hard work over the six months prior to the launch, Mark went on: “This is a major step forward for communication, responsiveness and decision-making across the Trust. I am excited to see how this technology develops further. It has already generated interest from other partners, including primary care, and could become another way of bringing together acute, community and primary care services.”
Wider trend: Digital supporting emergency care
Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust board has noted plans to introduce an emergency department digital front door and has highlighted how digital is supporting patient flow initiatives. In September A&E four-hour performance fell below the 78 percent target, with the trust sharing that a “high number” of patients could not be discharged promptly when no longer requiring hospital care, committing to working with community partners to address this with improved discharge pathways and increased virtual wards capacity. As part of work to address this challenge, the trust also plans to rollout an ED digital front door, offering automatic data transfer from the ambulance service to provide clinicians with faster access to patient information.
South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAmb) has launched a pilot of Tortus’s Ambient Voice solution in its emergency operations centres, looking to free-up clinician time to assist more patients. The tool listens in on conversations, transcribing spoken words into structured medical notes to be checked and approved. According to the trust, this is expected to reduce the amount of time taken by clinicians writing up notes following calls. The project follows a similar pilot of the technology at Great Ormond Street Hospital, where early phase testing saw the AI assistant trialled by clinicians, medical actors, and 100 patients. There, clinicians participating in simulated clinics found that the solution “helped them give their full attention to patients when using the tool, without decreasing the quality of the clinic note or letter”.
North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) NHS Trust has published a new strategy to 2031 with focuses on embracing innovation and taking advantage of opportunities from digital and data to better coordinate care, improve clinical decision support, and gain insight into demand. Endeavouring to embed continuous improvement and innovation for a sustainable future, the service sets out areas of focus including a move toward digital, data, and tech-enabled care, relying on digital tools, strong data, and innovations to improve services for patients. To date, achievements include the introduction of real-time safety dashboards and Power BI dashboards for performance monitoring, the rollout of SMART notice boards and a test of concept for a SMART station and SMART vehicles programme, and the launch of enhanced digital systems for EPR to enable measurement of safety and effectiveness.
