September 29, 2014 Industry news
A new study has stated that moving away from paper patient charts in the NHS could save the lives of thousands of people every year.
When nurses at two major NHS hospitals were given portable computers to record patients’ vital signs, mortality rates dropped by over 15%. Many have already stated that bringing more technology into the health service could help to improve patient outcomes, whether it is the adoption of smartwear such as Google Glass to help with surgeries or healthcare asset tracking software to keep tabs on vital applications. This new statistical evidence will help to back up these claims.
The researchers estimated that the drop in death rates could equate to around 750 extra patients being saved across both health facilities during one year. It was therefore theorised that if the handheld technology was rolled out across the entire NHS, it could lead to thousands of lives being potentially safeguarded.
The smart devices are now being operated in around 40 hospitals across the UK, where they are being viewed as a great improvement on paper-based systems, which can lead to errors due to miscalculations and poor handwriting. Working long and busy shifts, nurses are often under pressure to handle large caseloads, meaning that mistakes can occasionally occur. The technology will be used to take this element of human error out of the equation, which will benefit both patients and clinical staff.
As the devices can track the vitals of patients and calculate whether their health is improving or deteriorating, it can also advise whether more frequent monitoring is needed or alert a response team. For instance, 400 lives at a Portsmouth facility and 370 at a Coventry site have been reportedly saved by the new systems, following a mortality rate drop.