Nottingham hospitals deploy real-time workforce management system

The solution makes use of tablets and mobile devices to keep doctors updated

Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) has deployed a workforce management system to help doctors prioritise critical real-time patient information.

There are also plans to extend the system to support additional services.

The software, provided by Nervecentre, replaced a bleep system that was used across the Trust's Nottingham City Hospital and Queen's Medical Centre sites for the Hospital at Night (H@N) scheme.

"Previously the H@N co-ordinators, who are highly skilled clinical staff, were deskbound and had to deal with more than 1,000 calls, per site, per week," said Debbie Guy, lead nurse for H@N.

"Often they could have up to 10 bleeps waiting, with no visibility of priority. So if one of the bleeps related to a patient whose condition was critical, the implications could potentially be life threatening," she added.

The new Nervecentre system enables ward staff at NUH to type in a request on their computer, which is then presented to the H@N co-ordinator on their portable tablet computer.

The co-ordinator is given instant visibility of the exact condition of every patient, where the urgency of request is clearly stated.

They can also see in real-time which doctors are available, where they are located, what their skill set is and how much work they have got pending.

The most suitable doctor is then alerted via their mobile device and allocated to each case.

"There was a need to reduce delays caused by the old bleep-based process because they were causing risk to patients," said Matt Howden, head of service design in ICT services at NUH.

"This new system has closed the loop, making a huge contribution to patient safety. It has also significantly improved governance giving us an accurate record of all staff productivity," he added.

"There are excellent opportunities to use Nervecentre to improve a number of other services across the hospital."

Howden plans to roll out the software to support additional day-time activities and other disciplines in the hospital in the next two to three months.