Oasis and Worcs 'drag and drop' patients

Oasis and Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust have developed a real time bed management system that allows staff to virtually 'drag and drop' patient information using a touch-screen whiteboard.

The system, which will be piloted across two wards at the trust over the summer, will include an interactive board fed by the trust’s Oasis patient administration and other clinical systems.

It will allow staff to see the details of patients in each of the wards' beds, including their age, sex, allergies and whether there are outstanding or abnormal results. It will also enable staff to ‘drop’ patients into specific beds, wards and transfer areas.

John Thornbury, director of ICT at Worcestershire Health ICT Services, told E-Health Insider: ““We worked in partnership with Oasis who looked at our requirements in the sense that we wanted something that would effectively sit on top of our PAS.

" One of the key benefits will be in reducing admin for staff. We’ve been struggling to get real-time admissions working and being able to just drag and drop patients will be really beneficial.”

The trust said that it has had clinical buy-in from the start with the involvement of IT staff, clinicians, nurses, matrons and junior doctors in the development.

“It’s been built from the bottom up, so we could address everything that was required. It’s important that the whiteboard will be less time consuming for staff, otherwise they can miss the added value,” he said.

Sharon Boyes-Schiller, managing director of Oasis added: “It is designed so that clinical staff can plan and record the movement of patients within and between wards and departments on a touch screen.

"All the necessary administrative processes are completed automatically giving a real-time accurate picture of bed availability and overall capacity.”

Thornbury said that the system was specifically designed to be highly configurable and customisable and to integrate with other systems.

“For example we’ve taken into account the potential of the National Programme for IT in the NHS.

"We don’t want to change any of our underlying systems and start seeing products disappear, so we are trying to have solutions that are flexible so we can take components as we move forward.”

The trust has also been working with Oasis to trial its products on the iPad.

“The iPads are viewed very favorably by clinical staff. We also have to be cognisant that it is a market product - which could help cut training costs.

"We’re carrying out a technical evaluation at the moment and we know that Oasis works on it but not all other systems do, so have to take that into consideration.”

Link: Oasis