The Health Visiting Team in the Wishaw locality have received a Big Shout Out for their innovative use of technology in patient’s homes.
The health visiting service is a universal service that visits all new born babies by 14 days old.
Children are then visited following a universal pathway with the assessing of age and stage developments and providing family support.
Shona Moir, manager of the health visiting team in the Wishaw locality, said: “We’re involved in the families in all aspects of their life because everything impacts on their child. So we really get involved in the whole wider care.
“Our team is becoming paper light and have been increasing the use of iPads for the documentation. They also take it into the client’s home so that they can showcase support and resources that are available to them.
“I’ve got an absolutely fantastic team. We really embrace any quality improvement ideas. We’re are forward thinking team. As a locality, our managers are always happy to support any ideas that we want to take forward and we get that wider leadership support as well.”
The new digital processes allow the health visitors to also update the patient record from the patients home.
Fiona Robertson, health visitor, said: “Part of the project was to increase the use of iPad usage within a patient live environment and mentoring colleagues and staff to be able to do this. It follows the ways aligned with realistic medicine and affords the patient to be involved at the time of care.
“It improves patient safety and it allows the patient to be fully involved.”
The team have also been providing routine childhood vaccinations in the patient’s home, of those parents who have not brought their child for vaccination. Updating the vaccination record at the patients home using the new iPads.
Ross McGuffie, chief officer for North Lanarkshire Health and Social Care Partnership, said: “It’s great to hear all the great work the team has done around the Morse developments as well as the use of attend anywhere.
“They have also carried out some innovative work around the recall and appointments for vaccination.
“It’s a great example to show to other staff as well about the fact that we can really take control and use local leadership within the teams to make some really significant improvements in terms of how we can care for patients.
“I think tech is going to be a hugely important element in terms of future sustainable practice. So developing the use of platforms like Morse and attend anywhere is going to be absolutely vital to making services much more sustainable in the longer term. And we know that tech development is going be a huge focus for us over the next decade to come.”
The Big Shout Out praises NHS Lanarkshire teams for taking an innovative, creative and patient-centred approach to working, and recognises the unique contribution staff make to overcoming the challenges faced across the entire healthcare system.
