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MDI Medical would like to congratulate Midland Regional Hospital Tullamore on the launch of the Digital INEWS solution that went live in August 2023.
The introduction of the INEWS enables electronic recording of all physiologic parameters integral to the EWS score thereby reducing the time taken to capture these measurements as well as ensuring accurate calculation of the total score.
Phase 1 of the project begins a move away from a paper-based system to a Digital INEWS ‘track and trigger’ tool. The KEWS 300 platform allows clinical staff to have sight of all patient INEWS scores and vital signs on a single screen.
This new quality initiative in MRHT will assist clinical staff in the detection of, and timely response to, the clinically deteriorating patient and identify acutely unwell patients leading to improved patient outcomes.
MDI Medical were delighted to work on this exciting project in designing and installing all the Healthcare IT hardware to support INEWS including the mobile WOWs and dedicated physiological monitoring and medical grade hardware at the bedside.
Thanks to all the hospital project team and Syncrophi Systems Ltd for the cooperation and collaboration on this exciting project.
John Adlington (Principal Clinical Engineer/Project Lead – Midland Regional Hospital Tullamore)
“This significant quality initiative was implemented by a large multidisciplinary team consisting of Hospital Management, Clinical Engineering, Nursing, Practice Development, Medical, IT, Maintenance, QPS. In addition, the hospital team were supported nationally by Deteriorating Patient Improvement Programme, Office of the National Clinical Advisor & Group Lead Acute Hospitals, eHealth and Syncrophi Systems & MDI Medical; all with the same aim of providing a point-of-care technology to clinical staff for patient safety”.
To date over 500 Acute HSE beds are now implemented and monitored with the Digital INEWS solution with future expansion signed off and currently in phased project delivery for 2023/2024.
Current hospital sites gone live with Digital INEWS include:
Further 11 hospitals scheduled for installation.
Feedback below from other sites using the solution –Srininvas Kamila (Senior Project Manager – Tallaght University Hospital)
“The introduction of the EWS-enabled WOWs has enabled electronic recording of all physiologic parameters integral to the EWS score thereby reducing the time taken to capture these measurements as well as ensuring accurate calculation of the total score”.
Clinical Nurse Manager (St Luke’s Hospital – Kilkenny)
“There’s a sense of calm on the ward since the system went in that we have never had before. No more searching for charts and notes. The consultants can see everything at the Central Station whenever they come onto the ward”.
The solution not only provides ease of use and clinical data entry but also utilises the latest health IT hardware to ensure advanced ergonomic functionality for the users and the highest-level infection control devices, with the capability of integrating with multiple medical devices that may be in use on the ward to automatically¬ capture other vital-sign parameters.
This project shows the benefit of optimising both health IT software and hardware from a usability, ergonomic, defect-proofing and workflow-supporting perspective. It is important to recognise that more than 50% of a hospital’s employees (i.e., clinicians and nurses) will benefit from using the system.
From our data – each user will use it multiple times per hour. If implemented throughout the HSE’s hospitals it would eliminate 5,000,000 charting and scoring errors per annum.
Improving productivity, reducing cognitive burden, and eliminating opportunities for human error can be a real game-changer in the task-saturated, resource-stretched environment in the hospital ward.
The feedback from caregivers in the wards has been outstanding. Staff are more productive and have less cognitive burden. The hardware solution has been acknowledged as a major step forward in terms of ease-of-use and mobility. There is a greater sense of control in the ward. Charts are accurate and instantly available. Charting and scoring errors have almost been eliminated which leads to more accurate patient care in terms of the application of escalation protocols in compliance with the INEWS/DPIP guidelines. The status of all patients is clearly displayed at the central station which is a real boon for ward management and patient review.
