Royal Derby Hospital first to go live with ClinicalAide mobile handover

Royal Derby Hospital has gone live with a new mobile technology designed by DXC Technology to enhance how clinicians access vital information from the electronic patient record during the crucial stage of patient handover.

This can apply to the transferral of a patient’s care from one clinician to another, during or between shifts, day or night, and when a patient’s care environment changes, such as during a move from the emergency department to an inpatient setting.

ClinicalAide is a mobile application that fully integrates with the Lorenzo EPR, a system widely used in the NHS.

And it will help hospital staff to prioritise patients and ensure continuity of care during handover.

This is an important development for clinicians on the ground, who will be able to more-easily access important information at a glance from their mobile phones and tablets

The application will support national handover requirements with predicted time savings and efficiencies through the removal of paper processes, and it will enhance clinical safety by enabling clinicians to more-easily interact and view key information and assessments at a critical point in patient care. p> Professionals will also be able to quickly access vital information including test results and prescribed medications, early warning scores, and much more, all from mobile devices.

The approach taken by Royal Derby Hospital, as part of a wider digital transformation agenda, follows guidelines from the Royal College of Physicians which recognise the handover as mission critical and identify electronic data recording and access as the way forward.

Dr Sam Thacker, a practising clinician at Royal Derby Hospital, and associate clinical informatics officer for University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust, said: “This is an important development for clinicians on the ground, who will be able to more-easily access important information at a glance from their mobile phones and tablets.

“As our EPR, Lorenzo is an advanced system that already provides a great deal of important patient information and functionality to clinical staff.

“ClinicalAide takes this a step further, pulling routine information from the clinical record and giving clinicians everything they need at the tap of a device.

“It will allow more-intuitive information sharing between teams during handover and help busy staff to prioritise and flag unwell patients and those that need review.

“Staff will also be notified in minutes when patients they are responsible for are admitted.

“This has the potential to save substantial time for healthcare professionals.”

The trust has been heavily involved in the design and configuration of the technology to ensure it responds to frontline needs.

Being deployed in iterative stages, the first release of ClinicalAide allows healthcare professionals to configure patient lists and view allergies, alerts, problems, results, documentation and completed procedures associated with patients.

This is a powerful example of what can be achieved when the NHS works with technology suppliers to continually enhance the way important information reaches the right people

Staff can also see test results to facilitate decisions on the go to support immediate communication within the clinical team.

In upcoming releases, clinicians will be notified of new patient admissions, bookings and discharges, and will be able to access key medication information and prioritise patients according to their risk of deterioration, thanks to easy access to early warning scores and patient observations.

Observation and result trends will support patient assessment procedures, and patient consent will also be available at a glance.

And access to third-party solutions such as the trust’s picture archiving and communication system will be accessible from the ClinicalAide application to streamline workflow for clinicians.

In addition, ClinicalAide will also simplify compliance with information governance, with restrictions placed on sensitive and sealed information where appropriate.

Colin Henderson, director of healthcare and life sciences at DXC Technology, said: “This is a powerful example of what can be achieved when the NHS works with technology suppliers to continually enhance the way important information reaches the right people.

“This project demonstrates our determination to continue to evolve our technology to ensure it delivers for staff at the coalface, and ultimately for the needs of patients in their care.”