A patient safety improvement initiative at Medway Maritime Hospital, has been shortlisted for an HSJ Patient Safety Award.
The creation of a single, trusted source of clinical guidance, which clinicians can access at the patient’s bedside, has been put forward by the judging panel for the Digital Clinical Safety Initiative of the Year category.
Working with frontline teams, the Knowledge and Library Service added all of the hospital’s local guidelines to the BMJ Best Practice app, which is funded by NHS England’s Knowledge and Library Team and provides NHS healthcare professionals and learners with free access to the clinical decision support tool. By adding local guidelines to the app staff can readily access the most up to date information in one place either on a smartphone or a laptop/computer.
Staff received targeted training and peer support to help them use the system confidently.
As a result of the changes there has been a 191 per cent increase in the use of local guidelines, leading to improvements in the consistency of care provided. The approach also provides a model that can be adopted by other organisations.
Following research with the Emergency Department (ED), the team now plans to integrate the tool into the hospital’s Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system so clinicians can access the information they need, as and when they need it.
