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Case Study :
Coventry & Warwickshire Ambulance NHS Trust
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When research revealed that parcels tracking technology could improve its transport logistics, the Coventry & Warwickshire Ambulance NHS Trust began to look for a way to enhance its non-emergency service, which moves patients between their homes and hospital departments.
The solution lay in the introduction of a new wireless data-capture system that could be used to monitor vehicle and patient movements. The technology for the system was provided by T@lecom's Wireless Delivered™ suite of products and the O2 mobile network.
Since it was introduced in April 2004, the new system has enabled Coventry & Warwickshire Ambulance NHS Trust to use public money more efficiently and generated increased benefits for both patients and the NHS.
It is fast, adaptable, cost effective and extremely flexible, could be applied to coordinate the movement of emergency patients, and has potential as an application for emergency patient records and other clinical data transmission.
The trust operates a fleet of ambulances to perform non-emergency patient movements in and around Birmingham. It has the largest single UK contract with University Hospitals, Birmingham, and several other contracts including the University Hospital, Coventry and Warwickshire.
Whilst the requirements of its operations are far more critical than those
involving parcels, the planning and logistics of movements are very similar. The
service must pick up and drop patients at the right location and in time for
their appointments, minimise delays and operate as efficiently as possible. It
also has to factor in other variables, continuously monitor the situation and be
prepared to introduce contingencies, often whilst a situation is still
developing.
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A live wireless tracking system has proved the ideal way to meet all these requirements and at the same time enhance the service the NHS offers patients.
quipped with a PDA over a GPRS mobile network.
And as well as being one of the most advanced mobile data solutions currently available, Wireless Delivered™ also provides additional functions such as satellite navigation and automatic vehicle location to within 10 metres every minute.
Working together, the two parties quickly developed new software that discarded the use of barcodes – the mainstay of parcels tracking – and produced a system that provides better quality data on the movement of patients. Coventry & Warwickshire Ambulance NHS Trust already has 127 units operating in the field.
The new system, which is already attracting a good deal of interest from other ambulance services around the country, enables ambulance drivers using XDA II handheld units to log the time they arrive at a patient's house, the time they leave and the time they deliver them to their destination.
Using the system, unique data for every patient moved is now instantly available to the control centre, whilst the additional satellite navigation and tracking facilities ensures far greater productivity than the service was previously able to deliver using mobile radio technology linked to journey scheduling.
The new system has the potential to become a blueprint solution in many other instances where accurate, real time information on the movement of people can help save time and money, and improve the efficiency and indeed security of an operation.
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