London NHS Trust to roll out 800 mobile tablet computers

Devices have had a big positive impact on patient care

Clinicians equipped with tablets spend more time with patients and less in the office

The South West London & St George’s Mental Health Trust is to follow up a successful initial rollout of 200 tablet PCs in 2008 with the deployment of 800 more devices by the end of this summer.

The original 200 tablets were rolled out to staff such as early-intervention clinicians who spend on average 75 per cent of their working day out of the office.

Talking at the BCS HC2010 conference yesterday, project manager Jawad Chaudhry said: “The aim with the tablet rollout was to improve clinical care, and we certainly did this. The number of patients seen by staff with tablets increased by 20-30 per cent per week because the staff didn’t need to travel back to the office between appointments.”

The trust, which covers five London boroughs and 750 inpatient beds, has also been able to reduce its office space for mental health clinicians by 30 per cent since rolling out the initial 200 tablets.

The rollout, which followed the implementation of a Rio electronic care records system in 2006/07, enables clinicians to access patient records at the “point of care”.

Use of Rio subsequently increased by 20 per cent, as staff made use of their remote access.

The tablets connect to the internet via 3G USB data modems. Staff were also given access to the trust’s virtual private network, as well as authentication tokens, a further security measure. The trust worked with Vodafone to set up the system.

The tablets used encryption software that was centrally managed, and compression software to improve connection speeds.

Staff also had access to the internet, intranet and shared folders as if they were working from a desktop PC in the office.

When the trust conducted an evaluation of the rollout, 90 per cent of clinicians who were given the tablets said they found it useful, 80 per cent said it reduced the need to go back to the office, with a majority also saying it resulted in a better work/life balance.

The imminent rollout of a further 800 tablets will see upgraded lighter-weight devices deployed. The trust will also implement a series of change management programmes as well as hot desking in its offices.