Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust selects Nervecentre for electronic observations solution

Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust has been awarded Nursing Technology funding for an integrated cloud based mobile electronic observations and handover system. The Trust selected Nervecentre Software and Fordway to provide this seamless mobile healthcare platform to doctors and nurses to help improve patient safety and staff communications. The contract was awarded through the G-Cloud framework.

Initially, the Nervecentre mobile solution will be deployed across North Devon District Hospital. It will enable all the nurses to capture patient vital signs electronically at the bedside using Ipods, and automatically cascade alerts on deteriorating patients to doctors to ensure a rapid response. The solution will also provide electronic handover, including the Nervecentre Hospital@Night solution for 24/7 care of patients.

Mike Jones, Director of IM&T said: “We are really pleased to have been successful in our bid to the Nurse Technology Fund which is allowing us to expand our use of technology to support patient care. This development comes at a really exciting time for Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust as we implement a number of changes supported by technology, including the launch of a fully integrated electronic health record later this year.

“The Nervecentre solution means we will have real-time visibility of all our patients and be able to rapidly take action where necessary to ensure the right clinician is with a patient as soon as possible when needed. Additionally the technology will ensure smooth transitions at handover, especially during the night shift, ensuring safe, continuous care, every hour of the day.”

Sarah James, Head of Quality and Safety, and NDHT Project Executive for the implementation added: “This is a great use of technology to ensure we are offering the safest care to our patients. Using the system will allow us to improve communications across the difference disciplines working with our patients allowing a more robust and holistic plan of care to be developed with the easier identification of risks”

“Additionally we will have increased accuracy in our recording of observations and easier recognition of a deteriorating patient, allowing staff to escalate concerns more quickly. We’re really excited to see how the benefits of Nervecentre will help us as we increasingly use technology to deliver safer care.”

Partly funded by the Nursing Tech Fund Second Round, project implementation is progressing well. The cloud environment has already been set up and application testing has begun, ready for roll out of the mobile solution to all clinical staff by the end of the year.

Fordway, an experienced G-Cloud supplier, is hosting the Nervecentre application using its SecurePlus IaaS (infrastructure as a Service) solution. This provides 24 x 7 service with an availability greater than 99.8%, as well as full redundancy in a second data centre. All data is hosted on Fordway’s highly accredited and secure infrastructure, located in two UK data centres.

Richard Blanford, Managing Director of Fordway, said: “This is the first time Nervecentre has provided its application via the cloud, and we had to get our service in place quickly to enable them to meet the Trust’s delivery deadline – something which other potential suppliers were unable to do. We are delighted to support them in providing such a valuable and innovative application to the Trust.”