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July 2009 Shrewsbury and Telford signs up for PatientFlowThe Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust has signed a contract with TLC to install the company's innovative bed management and capacity planning system - VitalPAC PatientFlow. As well as standard bed management functions available on desktop PCs, PatientFlow allows nurses to update information on patient location, transfers and discharges, consultant and specialty information using hand-held VitalPAC bedside devices. Because it is regularly updated by clinical staff, PatientFlow is much more accurate and up-to-date than conventional systems. The initial contract will see PatientFlow introduced at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford with an option to extend across the whole Trust at a later date. VitalPAC extended at ImperialCharing Cross Hospital, part of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, has become the first Hospital to use an extended version of VitalPAC that enables clinicians to review their response to patient escalations. The system tracks the appropriateness of the alert and the time taken to respond to the call. With the system operating successfully at Charing Cross, VitalPAC has now been deployed on a further two wards, the Acute Admissions Unit and a Respiratory ward at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington. June 2009 
TLC is named HealthInvestor's IT Provider of the YearThe Learning Clinic has been named as HealthInvestor's IT provider of the year. The company was recognised for VitalPAC, an innovative system which helps hospital staff identify and treat patients at risk of deterioration, infection or VTE. Click here to view more details on the award. Click here to view the HealthInvestor website. Patient location records improved thanks to VitalPACPatientFlow - VitalPAC's innovative bed management system - is now fully managing details of patient location at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire. The system significantly aids the challenging process of bed management, a crucial part of efficient healthcare delivery. Whereas traditional bed management systems rely on administrative staff to keep them up to date - leading to just 70 per cent accuracy - VitalPAC updates patient location each time a nurse takes a set of observations. This leads to patient location records of 95 per cent accuracy, so helping to increase throughput and reduce length of stay. VitalPAC at NHS Confederation and NHS Innovation ExpoVitalPAC has been on display at two leading health conferences this month. In mid-June, visitors to the NHS Confederation annual conference in Liverpool had an opportunity to learn more about the system. One week later, attendees of the NHS Innovation Expo in London got their chance to get to know about VitalPAC. The Learning Clinic was hosted on the Microsoft stand as an official partner. At a packed seminar TLC Medical Director Dr Peter Greengross spoke of the benefits of the system. Managers from University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire also spoke of how the system has made a difference at their organisation. Two hospitals sign contracts for CRMSTwo hospitals have signed new contracts for The Learning Clinic's Consultant Resource Management System (CRMS). Royal United Hospital Bath NHS Trust have extended their contract for the system by a year, and Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust by three years. CRMS is a web-based application which helps manage job plans and diary management, so making it easier for clinicians to efficiently manage their workloads. The system can be integrated with VitalPAC, allowing doctors to easily view real-time data on each of their patients. May 2009 More Trusts adopt VitalPACWestern Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust and Luton and Dunstable Hospital NHS Foundation Trust have both signed contracts to install VitalPAC on their wards. Western Sussex is a newly formed Trust incorporating the old Worthing and Southlands and St Richard's NHS Trusts. It now has over 1000 beds and will initially be using the system on its emergency assessment and oncology wards. Luton and Dunstable has almost 600 beds and is well known for its work in the patient safety area. Its Chief Executive Stephen Ramsden is the NHS Patient Safety Campaign Director. The system is being installed on the Acute Care and Respiratory Units. VitalPAC helps control MRSANew evidence from Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust was presented at the Performance Improvement Network in London on 7th May showing that VitalPAC improves the control of Hospital Acquired Infections, particularly MRSA. The data shows that when VitalPAC was introduced onto the Trust's Medical Assessment Unit, compliance with MRSA screening increased from 70% to 97%, contributing to a fall in bacteraemia rates amongst medical patients of 78% over a five year period. VitalPAC on show at the NHS Confederation Annual ConferenceDelegates to this year's NHS Confederation Annual Conference will be able to try out the VitalPAC system during the two day event from 10-12 June. VitalPAC will be on display on stand H49 and we look forward to meeting a wide range of people working in the NHS or with just an interest in patient safety. The Annual Conference is one of the foremost healthcare events of the year attracting a wide range of attendees from the NHS, private and Third Sectors. Click here to view the conference website. April 2009 VitalPAC goes live at Royal SurreyFollowing contract signing in February, the first two wards at The Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Trust will go live in April. The Medical Admissions Unit and Clandon Ward will be evaluating the system for the next six months before wider roll-out. TLC Technical Director Roy Margolis said "We have been delighted at the level of support we have received from the Trust, enabling us to localise, test and implement the system rapidly and demonstrating how easily VitalPAC can integrate into legacy systems." VitalPAC records over 2 million observations and countingAs VitalPAC is adopted by more and more NHS Trusts, the number of complete observations captured by the system is increasing by over 200,000 per month. More than 2 million observation sets have now been taken with the system, generating a unique database of vital signs that can be linked to outcome and other data sets. The VitalPAC database is being used by researchers to develop improved algorithms for Early Warning Scores and to assess the systems impact on healthcare delivery and patient outcomes. Claire Read joins TLC as Editorial ManagerClaire Read has taken up the role of Editorial Manager at The Learning Clinic. Claire is an experienced healthcare writer and editor whose work has appeared in a wide range of national and local publications. She will work on creating product documentation as well as on internal and external communications. Claire joins TLC from Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Trust, where as internal communications manager she was responsible for publications and patient information literature. In the past, Claire worked with TLC to develop a number of the company's e-learning modules and is currently writing a chapter on effective communication for a forthcoming book on quality and safety in healthcare. March 2009 Portsmouth Hospitals wins HCAI Technology Innovation AwardPortsmouth Hospitals is one of only ten NHS Trusts that have been recognised for their outstanding contribution to fighting infection. The Trust has been awarded a grant of £150,000 by the HCAI Technology Innovation Programme. This is a joint initiative by the Department of Health and the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency to speed up the development and adoption of new technologies to help fight healthcare associated infections (HCAIs). The Trust intends to use the funding to work with The Learning Clinic to further develop the VitalPAC system to ensure continued improvements in the management and prevention of HCAIs. Click here to view the PASA website. VitalPAC accredited as a Medical DeviceThe Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has approved VitalPAC as a Class 1 Medical Device. This provides reassurance to our clients and patients that the system complies with new essential requirements and satisfies the regulator about safety, performance and specifications. Medical Device accreditation means that VitalPAC software will now bear the CE marking of conformity. Click here to view the MHRA website. Julia Sharman joins TLC as Sales DirectorJulia Sharman has joined The Learning Clinic as Sales Director. Julia is a fully qualified nurse and holds a post grad diploma and MSc in clinical research. She trained at the Royal Marsden Hospital before joining GlaxoSmithKline as an Oncology Support Nurse, spending 8 years in clinical research and business development, managing phase I – III research trials and completing an MSc in clinical research. Prior to joining TLC, Julia worked for Dr Foster intelligence, developing relationships and business opportunities within the NHS for their new business in NHS information tools. During this time she also completed a 9 month secondment to NHS East Midlands as Head of Performance Intelligence. TLC exhibiting at the Patient Safety CongressThe Learning Clinic is pleased to be exhibiting at this year's Patient Safety Congress to be held on 30th April and 1st May 2009 in Birmingham. The Congress is one of the foremost events in the patient safety calendar, attracting around 1500 delegates. VitalPAC will be on display on stand D29 and we look forward to demonstrating the system to all those interested in reducing avoidable deaths and complications amongst hospital patients. Click here to view the conference website. February 2009 Royal Surrey signs contract for VitalPACThe Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Trust is the latest hospital to contract with The Learning Clinic to pilot VitalPAC on its wards. The system is due to go live in April 2009. The Trust has over 500 beds and employs 2,800 staff, serving a population of 1.2 million people. VitalPAC will be piloted on two wards to demonstrate how it integrates with and supports clinical and IT systems. King's integrates VitalPAC into its EPRKing's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has worked with The Learning Clinic to enable clinicians to view VitalPAC data through its iSoft Electronic Patient Record. The new application means that vital signs records and alerts can be accessed with a single click so that staff do not have to log into and out of different systems. This development is a further demonstration of how easily VitalPAC integrates into any legacy or planned IT system. King's are now putting together a business case for Trust-wide roll-out. Click here to view the article in eHealth Insider. VitalPAC PatientFlow launches at Coventry and WarwickshireThe Learning Clinic's new real-time bed management system, VitalPAC PatientFlow, has been launched at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire. It will provide the Trust with a powerful new tool for operational management, capacity planning and improving throughput. The innovative system maintains an accurate record of patient location, specialty, consultant, clinical status and expected transfer or discharge dates. It can be fully integrated with VitalPAC's point of care clinical system. This means that patient details and risk status are updated in real time, linked directly to the delivery of clinical care. VitalPAC is popular with nurses, reports Nursing TimesAn article in Nursing Times reports on VitalPAC's continuing roll-out nationwide. It highlights recent research demonstrating how easily it integrates into ward routines and its popularity with nursing staff. The article quotes the head of nursing for general and emergency medicine at King's, who states that "the new system is proving popular with nursing staff at King's and is freeing up time for nurses to concentrate more on what they come to work to do: treat patients". Click here to view the article in Nursing Times. January 2009 New study shows that VitalPAC saves time and improves accuracyA paper by Mohammed et al published in the 8 January edition of the British Journal of Nursing confirms that VitalPAC significantly improves the accuracy of vital sign recording and Early Warning Score calculation. It also reduces the time taken to derive the EWS by 35%. Importantly, the views of nurses using the system shifted significantly in favour of VitalPAC compared with traditional pen and paper systems. This paper adds to the growing body of evidence that demonstrates how VitalPAC improves the quality and safety of health care. Click here to view the abstract. VitalPAC featured on Microsoft NHS Resource CentreTLC works closely with Microsoft to ensure that the VitalPAC system adopts the Common User Interface conventions. As a leading developer of hand-held wireless clinical applications, it has also contributed to the development of these standards. A new article on the Microsoft NHS Resource Centre website describes how the system works and how adoption of CUI principles means that using VitalPAC is intuitive, consistent with other clinical systems and easy to understand. Click here to view the article. December 2008 VitalPAC extended at Imperial, King's and Royal Berkshire NHS TrustsFollowing the successful installation of VitalPAC on selected wards at Charing Cross, King's College and the Royal Berkshire Hospitals, the system will be rolled out onto five other wards over the next three months, including the first wards at St Mary's Hospital in London. Roger Killen, TLC Managing Director, said "I am delighted that these major hospitals are extending their use of VitalPAC. In our experience, the more widely that VitalPAC is used, the easier and quicker it is to realise hospital-wide improvements in patient safety and care." McLaren Applied Technologies collaborates with TLC at Portsmouth HospitalsThe Learning Clinic and Portsmouth Hospitals have announced a joint pilot with McLaren Applied Technologies to trial McLaren's innovative mSense telemetry system. mSense can receive wireless feeds from any clinical monitoring device, enabling continuous mobile observation of higher risk patients. Combined with VitalPAC's unique capability to identify deteriorating patients and escalate care accordingly, the system could provide an elegant solution to the management of sick patients in pre, peri and post hospital settings. Click here to view the McLaren Applied Technologies website. November 2008 TLC wins contract to develop an Electronic Discharge SummaryThe Learning Clinic has been appointed by Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust to develop an Electronic Discharge Summary. The new system will capture information from TLC's innovative VitalPAC system that is being rolled out across the Trust. Combined with more traditional data sources, the new EDS will provide GPs with up-to-date, timely information about their patients' recent admissions to hospital. TLC exhibiting at NICE 2008 conferenceThe Learning Clinic is pleased to be supporting this year's tenth anniversary conference organised by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. TLC will be at stand 18 near the main refreshment area where you will be able to see demonstrations of VitalPAC and find out how it drives compliance with NICE guidance. Click here to view the conference website. Addenbrookes rolls out VitalPAC to two wardsCambridge University Hospitals Foundation Trust has successfully installed the VitalPAC system onto its Medical Short-stay Emergency Unit and its Acute Elderly Admissions ward at Addenbrookes Hospital. The system is being closely evaluated to identify how VitalPAC improves the quality and safety of patient care and in particular its ability to demonstrate compliance with best infection control practice. UHCW hosts TLC's annual User Group ForumThe Learning Clinic was delighted to organise VitalPAC 2008, its annual User Group Forum for existing and prospective clients at the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire on 12 November. Delegates from 15 organisations heard presentations from a variety of NHS Trusts that have introduced the system as well as from Microsoft and McLaren who demonstrated examples of how VitalPAC and associated technologies are likely to develop. October 2008 Roger Killen to speak at Innov'08Roger Killen, Managing Director of The Learning Clinic, has been invited as keynote speaker at the Innov'08 - Weaving Innovation Into Health conference to be held in Wellington, New Zealand from 3rd to 5th November 2008. Roger will be presenting a workshop on Making Innovation Happen in Healthcare and will be delivering the keynote presentation on VitalPAC as an innovative tool to assure patient safety. Click here to view the conference website VitalPAC shortlisted for BT eHealth Insider awardsTwo NHS Trusts that have installed VitalPAC in their hospitals have been nominated in two categories of this year's BT eHealth Insider awards. University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust has been shortlisted as one of the three contenders for the 'Best Use of IM&T (Information Management & Technology) to Promote Patient Safety' award. Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust has been shortlisted for the 'Best Use of Wireless Healthcare' award. The winners will be announced at the awards ceremony on 17th November. Click here to view the eHealth Insider web site. September 2008 TLC sponsors the Deteriorating Hospital Patient ConferenceFor the second year running The Learning Clinic was proud to be a sponsor of the Deteriorating Hospital Patient Conference held at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard on 25th September 2008. The conference was very well attended with presentations describing the impact of undetected deterioration on patients and their families, means to implement national guidance, improved methods for risk scoring and escalation and the impact of EWS systems on hospital care. Click here to view the conference web site. Helen Dowling joins The Learning ClinicHelen Dowling has joined The Learning Clinic as Product Manager with responsibility for ensuring that our innovative products maintain their cutting edge performance and are delivered to schedule. Helen has over 17 years experience in managing digital media content. She was Executive Producer at Dorling Kindersley Multimedia in the 1990s and Creative Director for Health and Kids content at Flextech-Telewest from 2000 onwards. Most recently, Helen has worked as a digital project manager for a range of clients including the BBC, the Science Museum and Pearson Broadband, as well as an author of science content for children. August 2008 Two wards go paperless at Royal Berkshire HospitalOver the course of August 2008 the first two wards piloting VitalPAC at The Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading removed their paper observation charts and converted to sole use of VitalPAC for capturing patient vital signs. VitalPAC is currently being piloted by the Trust to assess its ease of integration and impact on the quality and safety of patient care. July 2008 TLC wins contract at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust for hospital-wide roll-out of VitalPAC®Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust has signed a contract for roll-out of VitalPAC across their two hospitals, Royal Shrewsbury and the Princess Royal in Telford. North Hampshire NHS Trust signs contract for CRMSTLC has signed a contract with North Hampshire NHS Trust to supply its Clinician Resource Management System. Peter Greengross joins TLC as Medical DirectorPeter joins TLC with over 20 years clinical and management experience in the NHS and commercial sectors. Peter trained as a surgeon and public health physician before joining the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals as Assistant Medical Director. Peter has experience working in all healthcare sectors, in both the UK and internationally, and has been involved in a number of start-up ventures. Click here for more details. June 2008 Paperless working at South Devon Healthcare NHS TrustAn acute surgical ward at Torbay Hospital is the first clinical area in South Devon Healthcare NHS Trust to go paperless. The ward now captures all routine nursing observations and escalates care appropriately with the VitalPAC system. One of the Trust's respiratory wards will follow in September. Roger Killen presents at South Central SHA End of Life Care Baseline SummitRoger Killen, Managing Director of The Learning Clinic, gave a presentation at a conference organised to discuss end of life care organised by South Central SHA. The presentation focused on how VitalPAC could offer a means of mobile data capture across acute and community sectors to improve the quality of clinical communication during “end of life” care. May 2008 New pilot contract signed with St Mary's Paddington, Royal Berkshire, South Devon, Kings CollegeMany new hospital sites have been introducing VitalPAC pilots during 2008 as the approach to improved patient monitoring and support for appropriate clinical escalation gains momentum. TLC attends Patient Safety CongressWe launched our patient safety package to support MRSA and chlostridium difficile screening and point-of-care results reporting. The infection control package also includes a solution for tracking the insertion and condition of cannulae, and documenting these actions. We also introduced our package for ensuring the appropriate management of patients at risk of DVT. VitalPAC Infection Control is included on CfH ASCC listingTLC win the Connecting for Health tender for inclusion on their new catalogue of suppliers (Additional Supply and Capability Capacity, ASCC) list for 'infection control' solutions with our deployment partner, SCC Group. November 2007 Royal West Sussex NHS Trust awards TLC contract for the Clinician Resource Management SystemTLC's Clinician Resource Management System has been selected by Royal West Sussex NHS Trust to help improve the administration and management of the consultant contract, job planning and annual leave processes for its 100 consultants VitalPAC reaches final of Microsoft's Ingenuity Point competitionVitalPAC has been selected for the final of Microsoft's Ingenuity Point competition in the Healthcare category in recognition of The Learning Clinic's innovative use of Microsoft technology to quickly identify the deteriorating patient. Click here for more information on Ingenuity Point. Portsmouth's implementation of VitalPAC recognised as a 'good practice' example by the NPSAThe topic of patient deterioration has been tackled again by the NPSA in its most recent report 'Recognising and responding appropriately to early signs of deterioration in hospitalised patients' that was published on 16th November. Portsmouth's implementation of VitalPAC is identified within 'Appendix 2 - Resources and good practice examples for other initiatives, tools, and good practice examples'. Click here to view the NPSA documentation on deterioration in hospitalised patients. September 2007 TLC attends The Deteriorating Patient conferenceThe Learning Clinic attended The Deteriorating Patient conference at Portsmouth. The conference focused on the care of acutely ill patients in the non-critical and non-HDU areas of hospitals. Topics covered included Critical Care Outreach, Rapid Response Systems and Improving the Detection of Patient Deterioration with Monitoring and Early Warning Scores. Click here to view the conference web site. July 2007 The NPSA cites Portsmouth's implementation of VitalPAC as a 'safer practice' exampleThe importance of identifying and treating the deteriorating patient early was reinforced again in July 2007 by the NPSA and the accompanying NICE guidance. An implementation of VitalPAC (at Portsmouth) is highlighted as a safer practice example for 'Key theme 1: clinical or physiological deterioration not recognised or not acted upon' by the NPSA. Click here to view the NPSA documentation on acutely ill patients. Click here to view the NICE guidelines on acutely ill patients. May 2007 TLC becomes Motorola partnerThe Learning Clinic has become a Motorola partner. The Learning Clinic will work with Motorola on a convergence project, bringing together WiFi enabled patient lists and clinical data with a telephone service in a single device. Plymouth VitalPAC pilot given the go-aheadPlymouth Hospitals NHS Trust is introducing VitalPAC into some of their surgical wards. This project plans to extend VitalPAC's functionality to supporting surgical care. It is designed to maximise the safety and efficiency of surgery and to manage the specific needs of surgical patients. RFID pilot – new wristband technologyTogether with NXP Semiconductors, Sato (UK) and Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust we are introducing RFID wristbands to all Portsmouth emergency medical admissions. The wristbands contain a microchip which will hold the patient's name and key codes to uniquely identify them. When patients are monitored on the ward, VitalPAC will read their wristband thereby ensuring the right clinical data is associated with the correct patient at all times. April 2007 Coventry & Warwickshire VitalPAC project roll-outVitalPAC, is being rolled out across up to 1200 beds at University Hospitals of Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Trust. This implementation will include real-time alert messaging of medical staff upon change or deterioration in their patients' condition. All doctors will be able to remotely monitor their patients at any time and from anywhere within their hospitals. March 2007 VitalPAC - software with lifesaving potentialUsing VitalPAC, doctors know instantly when their patients are deteriorating. The information provided by VitalPAC gets to the right people more quickly, and is more accurate than traditional pen and paper methods. Click here to view the Guardian article. February 2007 TLC wins contract at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust for hospital-wide roll-out of VitalPACThe Learning Clinic have signed a contract with Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust to roll-out VitalPAC across the whole of Queen Alexandra Hospital. The system has undergone extensive trials in Portsmouth Hospitals' Medical and Surgical Assessment Units December 2006 Roger Killen is speaker at special interest session IHI Forum, USARoger Killen, Managing Director of The Learning Clinic, spoke at the 18th Annual National Forum on Quality Improvement in Healthcare November 2006 TLC signs Connecting for Health's Common User Interface agreement (CUI)The Common User Interface Programme has been developed by NHS Connecting for Health and Microsoft. The aim is to provide clinicians with a common look and feel which should increase patient safety, increase clinician effectiveness and efficiency and reduce training and support costs. The Learning Clinic is working with Microsoft to ensure that its software complies with CUI standards and is contributing to CUI development. Click here to view the CUI web site. October 2006 'Hospital-wide physiological surveillance - A new approach to the early identification and management of the sick patient': Article published by ElsevierG Smith, D Prytherch, P Schmidt, PI Featherstone, D Knight, G Clements, M. A Mohammed This paper summarises the role of VitalPAC in addressing the limitations of existing paper-based or other electronic 'track and trigger' systems. It outlines the ease of use, accuracy and speed of using the VitalPAC system on hand-held devices (PDAs) on a hospital-wide wireless network. This integrates all patient data and allows any member of the care team instantaneous access to a patient's early warning scores, physiological data and biochemistry and haematology results. 'Using the internet to deliver education on drug safety': Article published by QSHC onlineB D Franklin, K O'Grady, J Parr and I Walton Medical Administration Errors (MAEs) occur in 3-8% of all non-intravenous drug doses given in UK hospitals. Even higher rates for intravenous drugs have been reported. In conjunction with Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust, The Learning Clinic has developed online learning modules on Safe Medication to help address this issue. This article outlines the improvement in MAE for ward-based nurses who took the internet based online Safe Medication modules. The post-education study revealed the rate of serious medication errors was halved. The error rate in non-intravenous administration errors fell by 31%. This was statistically significant at 95% confidence interval. August 2006 'Calculating early earning scores – A classroom comparison of pen and paper and hand-held computer methods': Article published by ElsevierD Prytherch, G Smith, P Schmidt, P I Featherstone, K Stewart, D Knight, B Higgin Most hospitals have introduced 'track and trigger' systems to identify sick and deteriorating patients on hospital wards. Charting vital signs and calculating early warning scores is 70% accurate at best. This leads to many false calls upon the time of medical staff. The article demonstrated that the use of VitalPAC offered real advantages both in speed and accuracy in storing information on the patient's condition. |
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