BT's Wireless Hospital Delivers Healthy Benefits

Staff at Kings Mill Hospital in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, have been getting some funny looks lately after visitors spotted doctors and nurses talking to their lapels. But this is not an outbreak of some strange new disease. Instead, these hospital staff are among the first in the country to use a new communications system from BT which is helping to improve patient care.

In fact, staff aren't talking into their uniforms but a small voice-controlled badge that is actually a new type of phone. To call someone, staff simply say a person's name, department or role and they are automatically connected.

Although it sounds like it might be more at home on Star Trek rather than an episode of Casualty, around 1,200 hospital workers - from receptionists and porters to doctors, nurses and consultants - are talking to one another using these voice-controlled badges. The system is proving such a hit, it is being rolled out throughout the Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in Nottinghamshire making it the biggest installation of its type in the UK.

Called the BT Managed Vocera solution, it operates over a BT wireless local area network and allows people to speak to each other instantly anywhere in the hospital. Staff no longer have to remember phone numbers or stop what they are doing to make or receive a call. They just say a name and they're connected. The flexibility of the system is helping to improve the way clinicians work.

As Phil Bolton, trauma and orthopaedic nurse specialist at King's Mill Hospital, explains: "We often need a second opinion from a colleague and previously, unless they were close at hand, we’d have to bleep them to make contact. BT Managed Vocera enables us to do that without leaving the patient’s side."

Carl Miller, superintendent radiographer at the hospital, says the system enables him to continue to x-ray patients even when a problem arises. "I'm told about the issue immediately via the badge and can think of the best solution while I continue to work. So multi-tasking has become a reality," he said.

It's a major advance on traditional paging systems which can be slow and disruptive, or two-way walkie-talkies that can compromise security. And it is just one example of how technology and innovation from BT are helping to make a real difference to the UK's health service.

Elsewhere, the 600 bed John Radcliffe Hospital - part of the Oxford Radcliffe NHS Trust - has developed an electronic prescribing system for blood products that improves patient safety and cuts out inappropriate blood prescribing.

Combining a BT wireless network and using applications developed by Olympus osYris, the John Radcliffe solution uses bar codes and hand-held computers to improve the safety of blood transfusions and ensure that the right blood is transfused to the right patient. And it's a major improvement. The previous blood transfusion process was very complex and involved two nurses following a 27 stage paper trail. Today, the new process can be carried out by one nurse following 14 checks.

"The system helps to provide better patient care, because you can use the handheld computer at the bedside to check the process," says Amanda Davies, a senior ICU nurse. "Previously, we had to use two nurses to conduct a transfusion but now we only need one."

The blood tracking service is proving so successful, the BT wireless network is being expanded to cover the whole of John Radcliffe Hospital as well as the Trust’s Churchill and Horton sites, so that the benefits of the system can be achieved on a Trust-wide basis.

What links these innovations is that they deliver real benefit not just to the NHS, but to staff and patients alike. But there is also another area of common ground. All these innovations are critical. There is no room for error. Lives depend on these systems working. Which makes the work of BT and the health sector all the more acute.

"The element of clinical risk associated with this any change in this environment must be taken into account," explains Paul Woodman, head of Marketing for BT Health. "People's lives depend on it. For us, it's a constant driver. Improving the patient experience and patient safety - you can't ignore this.

"Technology can make a huge difference in the NHS - and BT's technology and innovation is delivering real benefits. In fact, one of our BT wireless hospital pilots saved a life in its first week. That's because staff were able to locate a clinician to attend a patient who ordinarily would have been difficult to trace."

So, not only is BT wireless hospital helping hospital staff to communicate more easily, it's also saving lives.