Mobile working based on Civicas Paris system frees up staff time in Cardiff and Vale NHS

Mobile working has proved a big success for patients in the Cardiff and Vale area
London - 17th October, 2011: Mobile working has proved a big success for patients

in the Cardiff and Vale area. District nurses, health visitors and other community health staff at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board (UHB), have been kitted out with clinically designed netbooks and installed with Civica Paris case management that allows staff to access and update patient information from the system on the go.
The companys health and social care business is part of Civica, a market leader in specialist systems and business process services that help organisations around the world to transform the way they work.

Mobile working with Paris has meant a huge increase in efficiency, drastically cutting time wasted returning to the office to collect and update records. It is estimated that the project will free up more than 8,300 hours of time for health staff the equivalent of 13 more staff being made available each day. Matt Smale, community district nurse at the board, said: I have been using the device for several months and have seen the benefits for myself. Most importantly the ability to view live patient data, 24 hours a day, no matter where you are, is invaluable for community staff like me when caring for our patients. Patients are also responding positively to staff using mobile working as they feel more involved in their care. For example, we are able to order medical supplies for them in their homes using the mobile devices during visits. The Civica Paris system first went live at Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust. In 2009, Civica began working with UHB to understand the benefits that might be achieved by extending the use of the system with the use of mobile technology; further work by UHB themselves analysed the various options and developed the solution. The scheme was launched last year with 343,000 from the Welsh Governments Invest to Save programme. It has been hailed a success with plans to build on the 370 staff that are already equipped for mobile working. The UHB

is now facilitating the next stage of the roll out. Around 470 staff are expected to be online by the end of the year and Kay Jeynes, head of district nursing, said the investment was making a real difference to patient care. Kay Jeynes said: The use of mobile working has freed up a huge amount of time for staff, that extra time is then being reinvested in patient care. Staff find it an incredibly useful resource and patients feel reassured that their care is being backed up by the latest technology. Andrew Lewis, director of Innovation and Improvement for the health board, said: The roll out of the mobile working programme shows investing in technology can have benefits for patients not just in a hospital setting but in the community too. This is an excellent use of the UHBs resources that has been able to increase efficiency and also improve the care we are providing for patients. Mark Vaughan, development director for Civica Health and Social Care, said While the efficiency savings achieved by the use of mobile technology are impressive, the improvements in care facilitated by giving community staff access to up to the minute information about their patients are even more important. The availability of the 4G mobile spectrum and ongoing enhancements to mobile networks will significantly improve network coverage, bringing real time mobile network access to more rural areas where the potential benefits are even greater, ultimately rendering other more limited offline solutions redundant.
Notes for editors Cardiff and Vale University Health Board came into being on 1 October 2009 through the amalgamation of Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust, the Cardiff Local Health Board and Vale of Glamorgan Local Health Board. About Civica Group Ltd The Civica Group (www.civica.co.uk) is a market leader in specialist systems and business process services that help organisations around the world to transform the way they work. Through experienced people who understand service delivery, the Group applies software, managed services and outsourcing to help customers streamline their activities. Civica supplies more than 2,000 organisations in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Canada and the USA, helping our customers to achieve a successful and more cost-efficient way of working.

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