Staff at Noble’s Hospital have introduced a first-of-type smartphone-based emergency alert system that eliminates the need for pagers and improves response times to urgent calls.
Manx Care worked in collaboration with Alcidion – an external technology solutions provider – to implement ‘SmartPage Clinical’ which provides clinicians with instantaneous two-way messaging, and enables rapid clinical decision-making to support faster patient care. It improves the acute referral process from the Emergency Department to inpatient care in terms of referral acceptance and time to specialty review, and also provides medics and support teams with a system which allows them to create and share tasks according to their availability and workload.
Previously, clinicians used a paging system which needed modernising plus was becoming unfit for purpose. The modern new communication system will provide greater reliability now, whilst at the same time future-proofing the systems used by Manx Care’s emergency teams for years to come. As well as supporting colleagues working in emergency settings, the technology will also be introduced in some non-emergency clinical scenarios across the hospital site at Noble’s plus Ramsey District Cottage Hospital. SmartPage Clinical may also be suitable for use by GPs and District Nurse teams as an effective communication tool, in order to refer patients or request support quickly, and so it could provide options for use in other teams across Manx Care in the future as part of the organisation’s digital transformation programme.
The development and implementation of SmartPage Clinical has been led by Manx Care’s Chief Clinical Information Officer, Dr Gregor Peden, and Chief Nursing Information Officer, Rebecca Erani, with support from colleagues in Government Technology Services.
Dr Peden said:
“SmartPage has provided Noble’s Hospital with a modern and intuitive messaging tool that helps to improve care and drive task efficiency by providing clinically rich information at point of care. Working innovatively with Alcidion to deliver a product that met the needs of front-line staff meant that our roll out and user adoption was relatively effortless.”
Teresa Cope, Manx Care’s CEO, commented:
“Having a communication tool that allows staff to talk and exchange messages quickly in any health and care system is important, but in an urgent and emergency care setting this is critical. Since we implemented SmartPage in Noble’s Hospital and replaced our legacy system, we’ve received very positive feedback from colleagues around its simplicity, reliability and functionality, and I’m looking forward to see how we can further utilise this technology across other departments and teams. Manx Care is undergoing a significant programme of transformation in order for us to achieve our aspiration to become the best small-Island health and care system in the world, and digital transformation is critical to this. I’d like to extend my thanks to the individuals and teams who have played a key role in this and very much embraced a digital mind-set.”
Phicture courtesy of Alcidion
