LATEST NEWS:

Tuesday 7 November 2006, Eye for Healthcare

***BREAKING NEWS***

"KIRK telecom - a SpectraLink company - are pleased to exhibit at Mobilising the Clinician 2006”, commented Mike McDaid, director of sales, EMEA at SpectraLink. “The use of wireless applications in healthcare is growing and hospitals are using this technology to increase staff mobility and efficiency, as well as increase their return on recent investments in wireless infrastructures. With this in mind, we are proud to partner with an event which encourages using mobile devices for best practice.”

Paul Napper, Manager, EyeforHealthcare welcomed the move by KIRK telecom, a Spectralink company. “EyeforHealthcare are delighted by the KIRK Spectralink exhibition at our show in December and we look forward to a long and fruitful relationship”

Tuesday 24 October 2006, Computer Weekly

Hounslow Primary Care Trust is to give clinicians remote access to a new clinical information system to improve the way that healthcare practitioners store, maintain and update patient records. The Rio system will also remove the need for the notes made by mobile health workers to be copied into clinical information systems...by back-office staff.

Child-health workers at the West London NHS trust will be the first to access electronic patient records using laptops equipped with 3G cards.Some 100 practitioners will use the system from late November. A further 500 practitioners, such as therapists, health visitors, school nurses and district nurses, will be given remote access to the Rio system over the next 12 months.

IT managers at Hounslow Primary Care Trust have worked with the heads of clinical services to identify how practitioners and other trust workers will benefit from remote access to records. Among other advantages, it is expected that remote access will improve patient care in the field and reduce back-­office updating of patient records. The first 100 staff to go live with remote Rio will be equipped with laptops costing £1,200 each. Including the 3G cards, it will take the cost of the first implementation to £140,000.

This news is testament to the growth in mobile deployment in the NHS. Learn more about this trend in December!

23rd October 2006, BBC News

The NHS could save £2.2bn a year by being more efficient in the way it works, the government has said. A Department of Health report noted wide variations in the way trusts in England dealt with emergency admissions and how long patients stayed.

Health Minister Andy Burnham said that "Productivity is about working smarter, not harder and improved efficiency will deliver both better patient care and better value to the taxpayer," he said.

About £510m could be clawed back reducing the number of people admitted the day before a procedure - some trusts admit around 10% of patients the day before their operation whereas others admit 60%. Improving the discharge process would save £975m, whereas carrying out more procedures as day-only cases could save £16m, while reducing variation on the number of outpatient referrals would save £278m. Cutting the number of unnecessary surgical procedures could save £73m, the government added.

Nigel Edwards, director of policy at the NHS Confederation, which represents over 90% of NHS organisations, said the announcement was a "welcome step towards helping the NHS become more productive". But he added: "NHS managers believe that we need to go further than this and radically overhaul the approach to measuring productivity by putting patient satisfaction and outcomes at the centre of a new approach."

EyeforHealthcare welcomes this news, as it underlines our research into the need for increased healthcare productivity. Increased productivity can also be attained by using wireless/mobile devices - and our conference in December, Mobilising the Clinician, will show you how to maximise productivity gains in providing patient care and using the best of mobile technology.