REVOLUTIONISING COMMUNICATIONS ACROSS HEALTH AND CARE

INTRODUCTION

For decades radio pagers have been used across the NHS as a robust method of communication. West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust was no exception and relied on the one-way messaging system.

West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust is a highly successful, award-winning trust providing hospital and community services to a population of around 280,000 people who live in west Suffolk. It is one of the UK's leading foundation trusts, with a 430-bed hospital. It was selected by NHS England as a Global Digital Exemplar for delivering exceptional care, efficiently, through the use of world-class digital technology and information.

The trust identified that the pager system was not fit for the modern healthcare workforce and the people they care for.

The problem is that the recipient does not know who is bleeping, why they are bleeping, or the level of urgency. This led to patient care being interrupted, time being wasted and made prioritisation difficult.

The trust also did not want frontline staff to turn to non-approved communication tools to fill the gap created by pagers. A solution was needed that satisfied NHS Information Governance (IG) whilst giving staff a modern-day alternative in the form of a secure messaging application.

Dr Nick Jenkins, Medical Director at the trust, explains:

“Everyone uses WhatsApp as it is so much easier, but it doesn’t meet the confidentiality standards of the NHS. As a medical director

I couldn’t sanction it, so I started looking for an alternative.“

Armed with this knowledge and commitment to patient safety and clinical excellence, the trust explored if there was a different option that could improve the quality and efficiency of service delivery for patients, whilst saving time and improving working life for their staff.

Jenna Sendall, Speech Therapist, explains what replacing the pager system means for her:

“Using Medic Bleep instead of the old pagers is fantastic. It allows us to create groups within the speech therapy department and the sub- teams, which is great because we can communicate with our colleagues really easily. We can see when a message has been delivered and read, so we know if it has been actioned, which is brilliant.”

Helen Boulton, Trauma Nurse Practitioner, says:

“Medic Bleep gives you a trail of communication. Sometimes you’ll be really busy and you’ll get a couple of bleeps through, so you can read them and reply. And if it isn’t urgent you can reply within a few minutes.”

The participating doctors and nurses completed a questionnaire about their experience of Medic Bleep compared to the traditional pager.

This revealed that the healthcare professionals felt the use of Medic Bleep may offer a better quality of work life, citing reasons such as:

Easier, less frustrating communication

Ability to see more patients

More time for patient care

Less distraction in workflow, through the ability to triage tasks and reduce bottlenecks

Since the pilot, the trust and Medic Creations worked together closely to make sure everyone was fully on board with the transformation and the robust infrastructure was in place.

BESPOKE SOLUTION

During the implementation process, the project team mapped out key communication pathways and processes in conjunction with healthcare staff to identify areas where efficiencies can be made, but also to ensure that a bespoke solution was created, specific to West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust.

Mike Bone, CIO at the trust, said:

"Part of being a global digital exemplar was to encourage innovation and look at better ways of using technology and exploiting it to improve clinical experience in the patient journey...it quickly became apparent that Medic Bleep has huge potential.”

GOVERNANCE AND CLINICAL SAFETY

Information must be complete, secure and accurate for a healthcare organisation to deliver excellent patient care. Both Medic Creations and the Trust are committed to IG best practice and treat information as a valued strategic asset. Care teams are now able to exchange patient data whilst adhering to the principles of integrity, security and interoperability.

Digitisation of data naturally attracts added clinical risk. Medic Bleep worked with the Trust to ensure that any added clinical risk was mitigated through a careful and dynamic risk assessment mandated by the Health & Social Care Act called DCB0160 and DCB0129. This remains a dynamic and collaborative process making sure that Medic Bleep is safe and that any clinical risk is mitigated to prevent patient harm.

COMMUNICATING THE CHANGE

Naturally there was a degree of caution towards change, particularly regarding changes to working practice. Historically staff have not been allowed to use smartphones in a clinical setting and there were some concerns that patients would not like this.

The trust and Medic Creations delivered thorough staff training and drop-in sessions to help build confidence in using Medic Bleep and counter change fear. It was also important to communicate the change with patients, to explain why healthcare professionals are using smartphone at the bedside, to help mitigate the risk of negative experience for patients.

BRING-YOUR-OWN-DEVICE (BYOD)

The trust adopted a BYOD strategy with a robust policy that permits staff to use their own smartphones and also provided a small number of managed devices for staff that didn’t own a smartphone or did not want to use their own device. Despite some staff stating concerns before Go-Live, the vast majority of staff have opted to use their own device and patient surveys have not revealed any issues with perception about their use around patients.

Medic Bleep also has a browser (web) interface, so staff have the full flexibility of using a smartphone or desktop as they go about their work.

West Suffolk NHS Trust Staff

embraced BYOD working with: 67% of staff finding Medic Bleep

Easy to Implement

An increase in 24% staff found that their discharge management plan was completed with greater efficiency

James Catton, Physician Associate, explains what it’s like using Medic Bleep:

“Medic Bleep has sped everything up. It makes it a lot quicker for me to talk to my colleagues across the trust.

I don’t necessarily know everybody in this trust, but on Medic Bleep you can find them really quickly through the search function. You can send them a message which has much more detail than a pager ever would have been able to, or if you need to you can speak to them directly through the app on a telephone call.”

Jenna Sendall, Speech and Language Therapist

“In terms the wider hospital it has really improved communication and made it quicker, efficient and streamlined the service.”

West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust and Medic Creations worked in partnership to provide their patients and staff with a complete, secure and IG compliant communication solution, and went live with Medic Bleep on 24 June 2019, replacing all non-emergency pagers. This was not an easy task and required clear vision, effective leadership and communication throughout the organisation to allow this major change to occur.

87% WSH Staff will recommend Medic Bleep to their collegues

Independent economic evaluation conservatively predicts £2.5 million efficiency saving per trust per year.