Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust deploys The Learning Clinic's VitalPAC system to improve patient safety

Healthcare improvement company The Learning Clinic is announcing that its VitalPAC Nurse and VitalPAC Doctor products are to be rolled out by Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust. This adds a further 18 wards to the more than 600 across the country where VitalPAC is already helping to improve efficiency and patient safety.

The trust was awarded funding from the Government’s Nursing Technology Fund to support the introduction of VitalPAC which will be rolled out to 18 wards from June. The roll-out is expected to be complete before the end of the summer.

Following installation of the system, other hospitals have reported mortality rates falling by 15% and average length of stay dropping by 10%.

Nurses will record patient’s vital signs digitally, using hand-held wireless mobile devices. The thick-client software ensures the system is available 100% of the time. Even if there is a break in Wifi, clinicians can continue to record observations and receive system prompts to alert them to patient deterioration. VitalPAC Nurse automatically calculates each patient’s Early Warning Score. Patient deterioration is detected early and escalated to the relevant doctor or specialist team, ensuring faster rescue.

The functionality being rolled out to the trust will include infection management, monitoring of fluid balance and monitoring of indwelling devices.

The trust is also deploying VitalPAC Doctor, a solution that gives doctors mobile access to comprehensive real-time information about the patients in their care. VitalPAC Doctor allows doctors to prioritise tasks, perform safer handovers and refer patients for advice or transfer.

Nick Elliott Client Engagement Director at The Learning Clinic said:

We know that where VitalPAC is in use in other hospitals there have been sustained improvements in patient safety, patient outcomes and hospital efficiency. I am delighted that Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust has chosen to become a VitalPAC hospital where clinicians can spend less time filling in paperwork and more time caring for patients.

In the 45 VitalPAC hospitals that are already fully rolled out, we are seeing evidence of greater resilience to winter pressures. Shorter length-of-stay and fewer infection outbreaks make an important contribution, but ease of access to comprehensive real-time data showing, for example, changing patterns of patient acuity and an accurate picture of bed availability, start to make a difference as soon as our systems come on stream.

Marcia Perry, Interim Deputy Director of Nursing at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, said:

Installing VitalPAC across the hospital will give our doctors, nurses and other clinical staff better information, more quickly and will enable them to further improve the way we care for our patients - as well as to work more efficiently.

We are looking forward to introducing this new way of working and being able to use new technology to deliver significant benefits both for patients and the teams caring for them.

The system acts like an electronic personal assistant providing additional support to our staff, ensuring that every patient receives the highest standards of care at all times. The information that the system gives us about what is happening across the hospital will also help us to ensure we have the right resources available in the right place.

The VitalPAC system is the leading system of its kind. It is currently used in more than 600 wards at over 45 hospitals to care for more than 75,000 patients each month.