INPATIENT ACCOMMODATION
designs. Trusts should review their rostering process, job plans, and team skill mix, to ensure that they have the right staff, with the right skills, in the right place, to meet patient needs. Incorporating touchdown bases and viewing windows improves patient monitoring, and combats both staff and patient isolation. Developing new communications approaches – for example using digital communication tools – and placing a focus on team-building activities and group training sessions, can promote teamwork and informal learning in the new environment. As well as addressing staff concerns, Trusts need a shift in mindset and behaviour to embed new ways of working, and reduce the impact that any confusion in the initial transfer that might otherwise lead to temporary increases in falls or medication errors. Trusts would do well to consider the influence model (see Figure 2),29
and
how they can adopt its four building blocks of change: role-modelling, fostering understanding and conviction, developing talent and skills, and reinforcing with formal mechanisms.
Incorporating digital solutions Finally, digital innovation can support the transition to single patient rooms and new models of nursing, in addition to improving patient experience and outcomes more broadly. Mapping digital solutions at an early stage in the planning process allows Trusts to understand the options available to them, evaluate their impact on patients, and assess their feasibility. Possible solutions include wearable technology, cameras (with permission), patient entertainment and controls, and staffing interfaces. The introduction of wearable technology in hospitals can be used to help improve patient monitoring, and support more responsive care and better patient outcomes. Wearable technology such as fall alarms, glucose monitors, and heart rate monitors, can be used to monitor patients’ health, and alert staff to any changes in it, without requiring constant visibility. Additionally, most wearable
Figure 3: Digital innovation can support the transition to single patient rooms and new models of nursing, in addition to improving patient experience and outcomes more broadly.
devices will collect real-time data on patient location, supporting more accurate and timely diagnosis and treatment.
Cameras and intercoms An alternative to wearable technology is the introduction of cameras and intercoms in patient rooms to support nursing. Cameras can be used to monitor patient conditions, and to ensure that any changes in health or behaviour can be quickly detected, while intercoms can be used for remote communication, improving infection control. Any introduction of cameras and intercoms should be done with clear monitoring guidelines, in line with good information governance, local buy-in, and informed patient consent, to ensure that patient privacy is respected. Hospitals can promote patient
wellbeing, socialisation, and feelings of control, through digital integration. Integrating entertainment, connectivity, and social media infrastructure, into single patient rooms can help make a patient’s stay more enjoyable, and allow them to stay connected with loved-ones and the
outside world. Similarly, providing patients with access to room controls, such as thermostats and blinds, can help to keep them comfortable, and promote feelings of control. Tablets and built-in stations, either in a
patient’s room, or in touchdown bases, can allow staff to access patient records quickly and ‘on the go’. This can support the new ways of working, and help to reduce the chances of care errors.
Conclusions
While the benefits and challenges of single patient room implementation are not fully understood, Trusts involved in the New Hospital Programme will need to engage with the full range of changes needed to inform design and business cases from the earliest opportunity if they are to ensure that their new hospitals deliver the best quality and value healthcare for their patients.
While there are a number of factors to
consider, single patient rooms represent an exciting opportunity to adopt new designs, change how ward care is run,
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RESULTS IN
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