Sheffield Children’s goes live with real-time patient flow system

Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust has fitted each of its patient wards with digital whiteboards as part of the implementation of a real-time patient flow system.

The solution will allow the Trust to better manage the patient journey by providing a real-time overview of capacity and needs in one consolidated view.

Each board includes various information such as infection control status, red to green status, expected discharge dates, and respiratory support and IVs to aid in clinical decision making.

The Patient Flow system was developed in collaboration with System C, and is a critical part of the company’s CareFlow integrated electronic patient record.

The main goal of patient flow solutions is to help improve clinical outcomes, reduce hospital stays, and provide cost savings.

The trust is already seeing the benefits of its use. Time consuming calls between the ward and the catering team for special feed requests have been eliminated. Under a streamlined digital process, the staff updates the whiteboard by 7 a.m. so that a report can be generated by the specialized feed kitchen. This is then checked by the dietician and time to time the kitchen meets the delivery deadline.

To ensure high adoption rates across all wards, Sheffield Children’s worked closely with System C to create a live and dynamic environment and manage support and resolutions before and after going live.

Guy Lucchese, Managing Director of Healthcare at Systems C, said: “Sheffield Children’s has made significant progress towards digitization and the introduction of patient flows, and the digital whiteboard will be a valuable addition to the hospital’s capabilities to manage increasing demand.

“The system provides accurate visibility into what is happening across the trust at any given time so that management teams can see potential, identify challenges and act accordingly.”

The patient flow system and digital whiteboard are the latest steps in Sheffield Children’s journey to digitize wards using System C’s integrated CareFlow EPR. To date progress includes integrated admissions, clinical handover, electronic observation, clinical noting, alerts and team communication.

Last September, System C signed a contract with Circle Health Group to deliver the CareFlow EPR.