VitalPAC - Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust

Recognising acutely-ill hospital patients and then successfully caring for them is one of the most significant challenges in modern healthcare. Each year, it is estimated that approximately 40,000 hospital inpatients die, 23,000 suffer cardiac arrests and 20,000 are admitted to Intensive Care Units. Key to meeting the challenge is the accurate monitoring of vital signs and identifying and acting on any changes. ‘Failure to Rescue’, as it has come to be known, has multiple causes including:

• Errors in vital signs observations
• Delegation to inexperienced staff
• Miscalculation of Early Warning Scores (EWS)
• Failure to escalate care to senior colleagues
• Doctors and others failing to respond promptly.

Meanwhile, dealing with ‘Failure to Care’ has become one of the most pressing issues in international healthcare, as highlighted by The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) and The National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD). It is the focus of major campaigns in the UK (UK Patient Safety First) and the USA (US Institute for Healthcare Improvement) to name but two.

VitalPAC™ is an electronic, wireless point-of-care system that uses PDAs and other mobile devices to monitor vital signs and record observations, thereby improving the quality of care and, thereby, patient safety. VitalPAC™

• Ensures regular capture of complete patient observations
• Drives hospital protocols such as patient monitoring, screening for infection control and VTE prevention
• Calculates accurate risk scores for each patient
• Is user friendly

A bio-clinical research team headed by a Consultant in Critical Care Medicine at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust (PHT) came up with the concept for VitalPAC™ and the original solution was designed by hospital improvement specialists The Learning Clinic, who were named HealthInvestor’s IT Provider of the Year for 2009. While PHT, who pioneered VitalPAC™ were recently awarded the NHS Excellence in Informatics Award for its implementation.

VitalPAC™ has wide-ranging benefits for patients and the NHS.

• It monitors patients in real time, anywhere in the hospital
• It helps rapidly identify deteriorating patients for earlier intervention
• It allows clinicians to spend more time at the bedside and less time doing paperwork
• It helps reduce the risk of infection and VTE
• It helps reduce morbidity and mortality
• It offers cost savings of up to £1m per annum per ward

For further information, please contact:
The Learning Clinic Limited
7 Lyric Square, London W6 0ED
Tel: +44 (0)20 8746 4545 Fax: +44 (0)20 8746 4570
info@thelearningclinic.co.uk