Leading healthcare organisations adopt Alcidion’s clinical messaging solution

6 August, Australia – Reliable and secure communication between clinicians is a critical component of digitally integrated and coordinated care across the healthcare sector.

However, siloed information due to a complex mix of pagers, legacy phones and whiteboards is a cause of communication delays or errors in many hospitals today. This can lead to longer waiting times, delayed or missed care and lack of visibility into staff workloads.

To address these challenges, leading healthcare organisations in Australia, New Zealand and the UK have adopted the use of Alcidion’s smart clinical messaging platform Smartpage: ACT Health, Counties Manukau District Health Board, Nelson Marlborough District Health Board and Townsville Hospital and Health Service.

ACT Health

ACT Health has integrated Smartpage’s non-clinical communication and task management capabilities with Alcidion’s FHIR-based technology platform, Miya Precision, to improve workflow efficiency. By combining Smartpage with Miya’s intuitive real-time display, ward staff can access information needed to manage their units efficiently, such as transfers and discharges and patient care requirements.

The ability to assign tasks, send notifications and alerts and have real-time visibility on team workloads, means ward staff can enable effective rounding and handovers, optimise resources and improve the coordination of care. The solution received strong uptake on the first day of use, with 17 wards people (orderlies) and two coordinators actively using the solution and over 130 tasks sent.

ACT Health Chief Information Officer Mr Peter O’Halloran described the initial implementation of Smartpage as “transformational” with immediate benefits being realised.  

“Smartpage was initially piloted with 17 wards people and we quickly saw the unallocated task list and the time taken to complete a task both decrease by 50 per cent. Clinical Work Devices and the use of Smartpage is a core component of the ACT Digital Health Strategy.”

Counties Manukau District Health Board (CMDHB)

Counties Manukau DHB initiated a pilot project to implement Smartpage to support and better manage its Radiology orderly services. CMDHB wanted to improve patient transport to and from radiology to minimise patient length of stay, improve patient care and improve operational efficiency.  

Smartpage provides views for both the orderlies and their supervisors to ensure that resource utilisation and communication is streamlined.  Following the success of the pilot, CMDHB has extended the use of the Smartpage solution to manage all orderly services across Middlemore Hospital.  

Nelson Marlborough District Health Board (NMDHB)

For Nelson Marlborough DHB, ward staff identified that technology could improve the flow of information and reduce delays in the patients’ journey. With Smartpage, nurses and clinical teams could share real-time information on patient status and pending activities and workload, to ensure the continuation of care across shifts and the effective allocation of responsibilities.

In the initial implementation, 100 hospital staff across four hospitals – Nelson, Wairau, Alexandra and Mental Health – were able to access Smartpage Clinical. Following the implementation of Smartpage Clinical, NMDHB will implement the Service Management component. Nurses and doctors across the hospitals are already reporting key benefits including more time to address patient needs.  

A Duty Nurse Manager from NMDHB said, “While it is early days in using Smartpage, we have seen improved communication across the areas using it. We are saving so much time every day now that we are using Smartpage.”

Other Ward Nurses have also provided feedback that “since Smartpage went in, the medical staff have been so much more responsible in dealing with issues. It’s been great – we love it.”

Townsville Hospital and Health Service (THHS)

Townsville Hospital and Health Service have recently signed a contract to implement Smartpage to support their clinical communication. This will be Alcidion’s first contract with a Queensland Hospital and Health Service to implement Smartpage.

The benefits of Smartpage will also be more easily accessible in the UK through the inclusion of Alcidion’s Smartpage product on the recently published NHSX Clinical Communications Procurement Framework which aims to phase out the use of pagers in the NHS by the end of 2021.

Alcidion Managing Director Kate Quirke said, “In recent months, a number of healthcare organisations have implemented or extended the use of our Smartpage solution to improve and secure communication across clinical and services teams. We are proud to partner with these forward-thinking organisations to help drive sustainable improvements in patient flow, care quality and patient and staff experience.”

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