NHS Fife has been recognised with a prestigious national award for its efforts to improve the safety of patients and cut cardiac arrests.
The annual eHealth Insider awards recognise the incredible work being done to harness technology to improve care.
NHS Fife won the top prize for best use of IT to promote patient safety for its implementation of the electronic clinical observation and early warning system, Patientrack.
In a groundbreaking move, it is the first health board in Scotland to deploy a full scale electronic track and trigger system, having gone live with Patientrack at Victoria Hospital earlier this year.
Patientrack enables nurses to capture a patient’s vital signs digitally at their bedside.
The technology can then accurately calculate an early warning score for the patient and automatically call medical staff to intervene when a patient is showing signs of deteriorating.
Clinicians at the Vic can now see in real-time where the sickest patients are across the whole hospital at any given point.
The system also enables live data to be streamed during the daily safety huddle meeting, ensuring that every area of the hospital is aware of priority patients and that resources are directed to the areas of greatest need.
Director of planning and strategic partnerships, Jann Gardner said: “We want to provide the safest and most effective care we can to patients and Patientrack is an excellent example of where technology can be used to support us in this aim.
“Patientrack has enabled us to provide real and tangible benefits for patients, supporting our clinicians to make significant improvements in the safety of those patients under our care.”
In the months following the deployment of the technology, the numbers of patients experiencing cardiac arrest in the hospital fell considerably.
In the medical admissions acute unit alone, the number dropped by two thirds in the first six months.
Dr Gavin Simpson, a consultant in critical care and anaesthetics, led the clinical deployment of Patientrack in the hospital.
He added: “There are warning signs before cardiac arrests.
“The key is to pick them up quickly, that is what Patientrack allows.
“Patientrack has helped us achieve an immediate and significant reduction in cardiac arrests in one of the busiest areas of the hospital, by up to two thirds.
“Any clinician can now instantly see the profiles of the sickest patients in the hospital.
“Patientrack has helped us introduce some of the biggest and most immediate changes in clinical practice I have ever seen.”
