PATIENT RESPONSE TECHNOLOGY


‘Making the invisible visible’ at advanced digital hospital


In September 2018, the new £200 m Chase Farm Hospital near Enfield opened to become what its operator, the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, believes is the NHS’s most advanced digital hospital. The process – from business case, to designed, built, and operational hospital in just four years – is believed to be unprecedented. One of the key elements of the new hospital’s digital infrastructure is an Ascom digital patient call system which is already helping nurses and clinicians deliver better care and significant operational efficiencies. Fiona Morcom, the Trust’s Clinical Implementation lead for the project, and Andy Dargue, IT Infrastructure Project manager, explain how a successful patient response system that works flexibly across all clinical areas was developed and implemented.


Nurse call systems with buzzers and lights have been around for years, usually managed by estates teams, but many are no longer fit for purpose. We needed something that would both change the way we worked and delivered care, and allow us to leverage the solution for other clinical and communication needs. The third floor of the new 23,000 m2


Chase


Farm Hospital features a 50-bed surgical ward, with 42 side rooms and two four- bedded bays. On the second floor are eight operating theatres and a day surgery unit, and, at ground floor level, an Urgent Care Centre and busy radiology department. The new hospital’s ground and first floors also house multiple outpatient clinics, some offering minor procedures, and the lower ground floor a busy endoscopy unit. The hospital’s highly efficient, future-proofed design – with digital technology harnessed in many areas – is a real ‘sea change’ from the


cramped, outdated Victorian premises we moved over from at the end of summer 2018.


While in the ‘old’ Chase Farm most inpatients were housed in four-bedded bays, running a ward safely with most patients hidden from sight inside (single) rooms at the new hospital meant we needed a digital solution that would optimise our view. Our chief executive and director of Nursing, Natalie Forrest – who has an extensive nursing background herself, and is thus fully familiar with the practical challenges nurses face day to day – described the Ascom system as ‘making the invisible, visible’. This was an apt description, because on initially viewing the long third floor corridor along which the 42 side rooms and two four-bedded bays are located, we had concerns over how nursing and clinical teams would be able to keep a proper eye on patients. Moving into the 21st century ‘digital world’


also afforded us the opportunity to look at the wider potential role of a digital system – in improving both our flexibility and operational effectiveness.


A trawl of the market


We scoured the market for the most modern and advanced patient response call solution, and the supplier that offered us what we needed was Ascom, a rapidly growing digital communications provider. Ascom – with whose earlier nurse call equipment we had good experience at the ‘old’ Chase Farm Hospital – was keen to support our vision. Its team was equally committed to working closely with our lead and clinical teams to provide a tailored, fully integrated solution. As a result, we now have a highly sophisticated Ascom Telligence patient response system that directly connects patients with their nurse via the company’s Myco 2 and Myco 3 smartphones – which the nurses and certain clinicians carry. The Myco 3 devices feature larger screens, and are thus better suited, for example, to viewing ward audits and patient vital signs data. The Ascom system also enables nurses, and, for example, doctors and consultants, to instantly connect with, or summon, colleagues from both within and outside the hospital.


Pictured in front of the main entrance at the new Chase Farm Hospital are (left to right): Fiona Morcom, James Webb, Susan Lau, Natalie Forrest, and Mark Bateman.


Appointment of a clinical lead The appointment of a clinical lead (Fiona Morcom) on the Trust side to interface with the clinical teams and the enablers – IT, Estates, and the solution provider – was a key step in enabling programme coordination, as well as an interface with the clinical teams to translate what was needed into what could be delivered. Early collaborative working meant that the team engaged in the project grew, so that traditional working boundaries were broken down. The Trust IT team had expanded considerably to support the


October 2019 Health Estate Journal 85


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