Bristol Community Health counting the benefits of mobile technology
Trust boss reveals increase in staff and patient satisfaction following TotalMobile implementation
Bristol Community Health has reported improvements in staff satisfaction, patient experience, in addition to increased patient contact time, following the introduction of a community health mobile workflow management solution provided by TotalMobile.
Speaking at the 10th Annual Mobile Healthcare Summit in Toronto recently, Julia Clarke, chief executive of Bristol Community Health, reported that clinicians surveyed as part of the pilot are 35% more positive about their ability to do their job to a standard they are satisfied with, and respondents feel 31% more able to manage caseload demands better.
The community landscape is changing dramatically throughout healthcare, with increasing demands on out-of-hospital care
Clinicians using the solution are saving significant time on every shift through the elimination of paperwork, unnecessary travel and data entry to patient record systems. For example, they are saving at least 30 minutes per shift on data entry into just one system.
The TotalMobile solution was deployed during a pilot covering more than 60 clinicians across three community nursing teams and a citywide phlebotomy service. Following this success, Bristol Community Health is now rolling the solution out to other areas of the organisation.
The social enterprise, a provider of NHS-funded community healthcare in Bristol, has 30,000 interactions with patients every month including those by a mobile workforce of 750 conducting home visits.
Using mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets, the solution has supported the organisation’s healthcare professionals to update patient information and record medical tasks, including onward referrals at the point of patient contact therefore reducing duplicate data entries. This has removed a very inefficient process of going to the patient’s home, filling in forms onsite, and then filling in the same forms at base. Additionally sharing information with other clinicians within the care pathway is much easier, more immediate and less time-consuming, as all requisite information is automatically updated and delivered to colleagues who require it.
Hannah Burge, a community nurse who has been part of the pilot, said: “Using mobile working technology has helped to alleviate some of the admin load. This means I now have more time to concentrate on the essential - caring for patients”.
The introduction of the TotalMobile solution has also led to a better patient experience. Amy Jones, a community nurse, explained that one of her patients was ‘fascinated by the device, the ability to take a photo of his wound, and how he was able to sign the device to consent to treatment plans’.
Clarke said of the pilot: "After thorough testing of the TotalMobile App Platform, we are really pleased to be able to launch it across more of our healthcare teams in Bristol. We are always striving to provide high-quality patient care, while becoming more efficient and productive as a team. We believe that by providing our teams with the flexibility that mobile working brings, we will be supporting them to achieve these goals."
Our philosophy is to make the frontline clinicians the centre of our world, so the patients can be the centre of theirs. This means providing them with the best possible user experience
The TotalMobile App Platform provides all of the workflow and information that clinicians need on the mobile device of their choice, so that everything pertaining to that patient is available in a single view, even if it has come from multiple back-end systems from different parts of the NHS. The system also works fully offline and is highly secure.
Colin Reid, chief executive of TotalMobile, said: “The community landscape is changing dramatically throughout healthcare, with increasing demands on out-of-hospital care. Bristol Community Health has recognised how mobile technology can support this change and its staff are now seeing the benefits – spending as much time with their patients as possible by reducing their administrative and travel burdens.
“Our philosophy is to make the frontline clinicians the centre of our world, so the patients can be the centre of theirs. This means providing them with the best possible user experience. This ensures that the people delivering community healthcare ‘in the field’ – such as community matrons, district nurses, phlebotomists – have the right tools at the right time, helping them be as satisfied and productive in their work as they can be.”
