Stone Helps Brighton & Sussex NHS Tackle Bed Contention Issues

Stone Group has completed implementation of a bed-management system at Brighton & Sussex University Hospitals (BSUH) NHS Trust, in a bid to help enhance patient care and efficiency.

The project took around three weeks to complete and involved the installation of around 70 Samsung Large Format Display (LFD) monitors with touch screen capability across all in-patient wards through the Trust’s two sites in Brighton and Haywards Heath.

Bedding in

The shortage of beds in NHS hospitals in the UK requires careful management and this could be tackled with better IT systems.

The BSUH system allows staff to see when beds become available and also feature a traffic light coding system which allows all staff coming onto the ward, such as a physiotherapist, to see which patient requires assessment quickly and clearly. In addition, this same information can be accessed from a remote desktop by the same physiotherapist while on another ward or in their own department.

Before the system was installed, the hospital had to rely on handwritten notes on a whiteboard and a desktop application. These systems were time-consuming and difficult to keep updated, causing delays to a patient’s progression throughout the hospital system and their eventual discharge. Since the introduction of the new system, the time spent processing bed movements has been cut down to eight minutes in comparison to the previous three days.

Niki Porter, operational services manager at BSUH, said, “We are delighted with the simplicity, visibility and tidiness of the interactive displays. We needed to increase visibility of patient information and ensure the same information was visible on every desktop throughout the trust to increase efficiencies in each ward and make decision-making easier and quicker. It is helping our nurses focus on what is crucial – while the administrative role is key, our nurses have trained so hard for so long to be able to deliver the standards of care that our patients expect.

“Stone Group was the clear choice for us, demonstrating knowledge and understanding of our position as an NHS trust, enabling us to make informed decisions. They have provided flexibility and outstanding customer care, completing the installation quickly and seamlessly with minimal disruption to the day-to-day running of the hospitals,” she added.