A report has shown that patient waiting times at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust have been cut by a third following the implementation of a Cisco network and telephony system.
Since the deployment of the new communications tools, patients at NUH spend significantly less time waiting for treatment while doctors have increased their available time for direct patient care time by approximately 40 minutes per day, claims Cisco.
The new solution reduces the patient journey time of 23 percent for adult patients and 33 percent for pediatric patients, claims Cisco. When treating minor injury patients equating to a potential time saving of over seven hours per day, or one doctor per year. Hospitals can also get full return on investment in the new technology in just 14 months.
“Good communication is key to the delivery of quality health care: improving efficiency, reducing cost, speeding up the patient journey, and improving the overall patient experience,” said Neil Crockett, managing director, public sector Cisco UK & Ireland. “The new system at NUH has helped solve the communication problems, meaning that staff now have more time to spend on their patients and immediate access to the vital information”
The solution provided by Cisco is a medical-grade network to provide both wired and wireless (Wi-Fi) network foundation and architectures. It enables all communication, including advanced clinical applications and biomedical devices, to operate in a protected, interactive, resilient and responsive environment. The portable Wi-Fi phones can be used for internal calls throughout the hospital at zero cost, and they offer a range of “smart” messaging options.
In October 2009, Dr. Erfan & Bagedo General Hospital, a private hospital in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia selected Cisco Unified Communications (News – Alert) network to enable a collaborative connected health community environment. The system has been designed to help the hospital increase caregiver teamwork and productivity and to provide better patient experiences by delivering increasingly sophisticated treatments more cost-effectively and efficiently.
source: cisco website