Hull and East Yorks buys CSC whiteboards

One of the new e-whiteboards in action

Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust will roll-out CSC’s e-whiteboards to a further 27 wards at Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill Hospital.

The 1,150-bed trust has already trialled the e-whiteboards on a rapid turnover elderly care ward, stroke unit and neurosciences unit, where it is used by multidisciplinary teams.

“The trial phase was extremely successful in improving the flow of information and in turn the flow of patients across the organisation,” said Steve Jessop, nurse director of the Medicine Health Group at the trust.

“The system has a bi-directional interface with our patient administration system, so we can be certain that we have the latest information to ensure that we always know the location of a patient and the next steps in their care pathway.”

The boards will give the trust touch screen displays of ward activity that staff can use to check and update patient or bed status from any networked computer.

“Staff no longer have to manually enter data into complex spreadsheets, which can be difficult and open to error,” Jessop said.

“The e-whiteboards take away the high-intensity pressure that is often associated with managing patient flow.”

A four-year contract was signed in the first quarter of this year for the e-whiteboards, which are based on technology developed by Cayder.

The contract with CSC includes the configuration of the software to the trust’s specific needs and integration with its patient administration system. The trust uses iSoft’s Patient Centre PAS.

The e-whiteboards are part of a multimillion-pound IM&T programme that will be undertaken by the trust over the next five years.

This will see the introduction of e-observations, e-prescribing, the development of a clinical portal, the digitisation of patient documentation and a major investment in infrastructure to provide a new clinical-grade network and digital telephony throughout the trust.