The Global Digital Exemplar trust will use Alcidion’s Patientrack solution to advance patient safety and alert healthcare professionals to deteriorating patients.
Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust has reached an agreement with global technology company Alcidion that will see healthcare professionals benefit from the Patientrack e-observations and clinical assessment solution.
The trust is part of NHS England’s Global Digital Exemplar (GDE) programme – an initiative that is seeing hospitals across England develop the highest levels of digital maturity and create blueprints for other trusts to adapt.
Samantha Sellick, deputy chief nursing information officer, Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, said: “By implementing Patientrack, we will help to improve patient safety on our wards. Clinicians will have visibility of patient observations and trends wherever they are in the hospital; previously this would only have been accessible on paper at the patient’s bedside.
“We have a multidisciplinary team working on the implementation, with clinical leadership to transform the way we record and view observations. As an NHS Global Digital Exemplar, we will be sharing our learning with other organisations. Plus, we have worked collaboratively with Alcidion to ensure that the Patientrack solution has been tailored to the trust’s needs.”
The trust will use Patientrack to digitise how patients’ vital signs and observations are captured at the bedside. This will ensure that patients’ early warning scores are accurately and automatically calculated, and that clinicians, nurses and other appropriate healthcare professionals are alerted when patients are at risk of deterioration so that they can intervene earlier.
After an initial go-live of electronic observations, the trust will use Patientrack for a progressive deployment of electronic patient assessments including sepsis, neurological, neurovascular, weight and Bristol Stool assessments.
Patientrack will interoperate with other hospital systems to deliver vital information where it is needed. Deployment of the system will help to deliver on the ambitions of the trust’s best of breed digital strategy, which has drawn heavily on clinicians in identifying the right technologies to support care. The Patientrack software will be tailored to the organisation’s needs in a collaborative approach between the trust and Alcidion.
Stuart Hill, deputy CIO, Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Patientrack will form part of the trust’s suite of clinical solutions, which clinicians use to support patient-centred care. Electronic observations and assessments are vital to the trust’s digital priorities which fits our GDE programme blueprint to advance the use of digitally-enabled care.
“We chose Alcidion’s Patientrack solution because of its proven impact across other NHS organisations to enhance patient safety through digital technology. It will make essential information on patients at risk of deterioration much more mobile for our clinicians, who will benefit quickly from this solution which is planned to be deployed over the coming months.”
Patientrack will provide an important foundation to accelerate the trust’s clinically-led patient safety programme and plan that aims to empower frontline staff with new tools and methods to help measure improvements in patient care. Key to this is also ensuring effective engagement of healthcare and multi-disciplinary teams for which onboarding and training has been developed working in collaboration with Alcidion.
Donald Kennedy, UK general manager at Alcidion, said: “This fast implementation shows what can be done when NHS hospitals and responsive technology providers work together. This best of suite approach to digital transformation is about delivering tangible benefits in patient safety to frontline NHS staff quickly in a trust that is looked to across England, and further afield, as an example of digital excellence.”
Kate Quirke, CEO for Alcidion, said: “The NHS remains our biggest customer base in the world, drawing on proven technology to make a difference for the lives of patients. This is an important opportunity for us to expand our work within a globally respected institution, and to put helpful technology and information into the hands of professionals, where it can really make a difference.”
More widely across the NHS many hospitals have recorded improvements in patient safety by using the Patientrack solution, which has given staff visibility of their sickest patients. Measured impact has included significant reductions in cardiac arrests, mortality, lengths of stay, and admissions to intensive care. Hospitals have also innovated with Patientrack to tackle deadly conditions, including acute kidney injury and sepsis.
