University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust continues its digital transformation with the introduction of Nervecentre Night Hospital.
The centralized, mobile digital platform means that patient care during the night shift can be closely monitored and prioritized if necessary. Between 8pm and 8am, the software is used to ensure that room requests are sent electronically to the acute care team coordinators. They can then assign tasks to their medical colleagues with a single click.
The system provides real-time information, so it’s easy for the acute care team to know which doctors are available, where they are in the hospital and what their current workload looks like, and assign tasks to the doctor more appropriate.
The move causes Plymouth to unite Leicester NHS Trust Hospital i Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust who run Hospital at Night.
Dr. Marc Bertagne, an internal medicine student at the trust, said: “The system is well designed and easy to use. The combination of receiving audible alerts about assigning a task with the ability to instantly send messages to colleagues about patient care, allows junior physicians to work efficiently during out-of-hours operations. ”
Going live with Hospital at Night is just one more step in the global trust project to digitize patient care. The introduction of electronic prescription and medication administration (EPMA) was also part of the Digital Care project. The next phase is to replace the current ED management system with a Nervecentre solution that can make electronic observations and improve sepsis pathways.
The deputy medical director of the trust, Paul McArdle, added: “The night hospital provides information that ultimately means significant benefits in both efficiency and safety for our patients and our staff.
“I am always proud of the work of our teams here at the Trust, but when projects of this magnitude are implemented in the organization, it makes me incredibly proud to see the work of so many come together for the benefit of our patients and help to manage the workloads of our colleagues “.
