Sheffield Children's Hospital is testing a
self-developed bedside computer system that will provide free TV,
internet and secure telephone links for patients as well as
clinical applications to staff.
The system was developed by the hospital's IT department in
collaboration with partners to help it avoid having to sign
restrictive 15-year contracts negotiated by the NHS with several
national service providers.
The Sheffield
Children's NHS Foundation Trust delayed meeting an NHS mandate
to provide free communication services to children in hospitals to
give it time to find an alternative.
Instead the trust decided to develop its own system using
equipment purchased with funds raised by the
Sheffield
Children's Hospital Charity that could be managed in-house and
did not impose any contractual obligations.
"The Trust wanted an independently owned and managed system that
could be used for both patients and staff," said Russel Banks, head
of information management and technology at the Trust.
The equipment from hospital supplier Wandsworth Group was
integrated with the hospital's clinical information and internal
Cisco IP telephone systems to ensure secure national phone links
for children, parents and other authorised users.
The first phase of the safety and feasibility trial of 21 units
was officially begun in November 2007. That phase is nearing
completion. A second phase using 86 more units to test staff access
to clinical systems is expected to begin by the middle of 2008.
The Wandsworth equipment has been modified to enable hospital
staff to access clinical applications
using
NHS smart cards. The systems will then revert to being purely
for patients once the cards are removed as the two systems are
independent and self-contained.
In keeping with the NHS Connecting for Health Programme's aim of
moving forward with IT for staff, Banks said the Trust wanted to
make sure the bedside systems were multifunction units that could
be used by clinical staff as well as patients.
"The Trust wanted to rationalise the equipment we had and make
better use of it," he said.
Once the second phase equipment has been installed, a further 86
units will be placed on order to complete the roll-out to the rest
of the hospital, which treats over 35,000 children a year.