‘Making the invisible visible’ at advanced digital hospital

The process – from business case, to designed, built, and operational hospital in just four years – is believed to be unprecedented. One of the key elements of the new hospital’s digital infrastructure is an Ascom digital patient call system which is already helping nurses and clinicians deliver better care and significant operational efficiencies. Fiona Morcom, the Trust’s Clinical Implementation lead for the project, and Andy Dargue, IT Infrastructure Project manager, explain how a successful patient response system that works flexibly across all clinical areas was developed and implemented.

Nurse call systems with buzzers and lights have been around for years, usually managed by estates teams, but many are no longer fit for purpose. We needed something that would both change the way we worked and delivered care, and allow us to leverage the solution for other clinical and communication needs. The third floor of the new 23,000 m2 Chase Farm Hospital features a 50-bed surgical ward, with 42 side rooms and two fourbedded bays. On the second floor are eight operating theatres and a day surgery unit, and, at ground floor level, an Urgent Care Centre and busy radiology department. The new hospital’s ground and first floors also house multiple outpatient clinics, some offering minor procedures, and the lower ground floor a busy endoscopy unit. The hospital’s highly efficient, future-proofed design – with digital technology harnessed in many areas – is a real ‘sea change’ from the cramped, outdated Victorian premises we moved over from at the end of summer 2018. 

While in the ‘old’ Chase Farm most inpatients were housed in four-bedded bays, running a ward safely with most patients hidden from sight inside (single) rooms at the new hospital meant we needed a digital solution that would optimise our view. Our chief executive and director of Nursing, Natalie Forrest – who has an extensive nursing background herself, and is thus fully familiar with the practical challenges nurses face day to day – described the Ascom system as ‘making the invisible, visible’. This was an apt description, because on initially viewing the long third floor corridor along which the 42 side rooms and two four-bedded bays are located, we had concerns over how nursing and clinical teams would be able to keep a proper eye on patients. Moving into the 21st century ‘digital world’ also afforded us the opportunity to look at the wider potential role of a digital system – in improving both our flexibility and operational effectiveness.