Hospital consultants in the Southern Health and Social Care Trust are using iPads to improve access to patient information and update notes in real time.
The new mobile solution is improving decision making, patient safety and helping to ensure that those patients who are medically fit can get home from hospital as soon as possible.
Mr Damian McKay, Consultant Surgeon for the Southern Health and Social Care Trust explains: “Hospital clinicians spend a lot of time on the move between ward rounds, clinics and theatre so it is not always easy or practical to get to a desktop to update notes. The IPADs have provided a very portable and safe solution to this issue, I can now arrange for patients to go directly to theatre promptly after I assess them, which helps to improve my workflow and more importantly ensure that the patient gets the care they need much more quickly.”
Consultant Urologist, Mr Anthony Glackin continues: “By improving communications, the introduction of IPADs is helping to enhance the safety and quality of care that Consultants can provide. By giving me constant access to accurate and timely information, it is helping me to make clinical decisions much more effectively and action the results of diagnostic tests more promptly.”
Supported by European Funding, the IPADS use a wireless virtual desktop infrastructure which means that no data is actually stored on the device but is displayed from a secure server as needed.
Siobhan Hanna, Assistant Director of Informatics for the Southern Trust says: “Technology provides a real opportunity for us to improve the care we provide and the experience of the patients and clients using our services. Whilst the introduction of IPADS may seem like a very straightforward step, a lot of work goes on behind the scenes to ensure that such a solution can support all of our hospital information systems whilst maintaining the security of patient and client information at all times.
“Being able to provide solutions to make patient data more available to clinicians through portable devices of their choice, is a further step in the Southern Trust’s digital health agenda and we are delighted that consultants now have the information that they need in a much more accessible way than the traditional paper based system.”
Click to here hear more from the Consultants on how IPADs are helping them to improve patient care.
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