Birmingham Children’s Hospital installs touchscreen teleconferencing

Birmingham Children’s Hospital has installed a new touchscreen teleconferencing system to speed up the decision-making process by medical experts when dealing with critically ill patients, which the Trust’s head of IT said would significantly improve patient care.

The OpenScape Xpert system has been installed in the main hub of the Kids Intensive Care and Decision Support (KIDS) service based at the West Midlands hospital. KIDS provides assistance to nurses, doctors and specialists treating critically ill babies, children and young people across the West Midlands, who will now use the Unify tool to manage the 1,600 unplanned emergency calls which they receive each year.

Birmingham Children’s Hospital head of IT David Marshall said: “It will not only benefit Birmingham Children’s Hospital but will allow the referring hospitals who ring the KIDS service to benefit from more efficient handling of emergency paediatric calls.

“We are incredibly well-positioned for the future, and are really setting the standard for other children’s hospitals in the country to follow in terms of highly-responsive patient care.”

KIDS lead nurse Phil Wilson said: “This will facilitate rapid resolution of clinical and logistical intricacies to the benefit of patients and families.”