National accolade for Team NUH’s work towards paper-light
The Digital Nursing Team at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) has been shortlisted for a Nursing Times Award for its work in digitising a number of the Trust’s paper- based processes.
These national awards highlight excellence in a range of nursing specialties and NUH was shortlisted in the category of Technology and Data in Nursing. The team has transferred a number of paper-based inpatient documents into electronic assessments, which have been used in over 70 adult wards across Queen’s Medical Centre and Nottingham City Hospital.
Ann-Marie Riley, Deputy Chief Nurse at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH), who led the team, said: “I’m delighted that the team has been recognised in this way. It is thoroughly deserved.
“NUH is committed to becoming a paper-light organisation and this project has been instrumental in getting our nursing and midwifery teams to a stage where providing digitally- enabled care can be a reality. It’s no secret that our nurses and midwives can feel burdened by lengthy paperwork processes, a lot of which is duplicated, so by designing more efficient processes that can be dealt with on a hand-held device and stored safely and securely, it frees us up to spend more time on caring for our patients.”
The electronic assessments also resulted in quicker admission processes for patients, improvement in compliance, data being more easily accessible and a reduction in paper and printing costs.
“Ann-Marie added: “One of the supportive mechanisms within our assessments we designed was smoking and alcohol referrals. Rather than logging into a computer or making a phone call, an automatic referral can now be generated just by clicking a button. Not only has it saved time but it’s resulted in more referrals.
“We’re now looking at rolling-out these assessments to our children’s wards and critical care areas and we have lots more digital initiatives we plan to progress. We want our nursing and midwifery teams to become completely digital but this won’t be an overnight process. However, with the commitment we are getting from teams to make this happen, we are confident we will achieve our ambition and this will be a real step change in healthcare for our community.”
The winners will be announced at a ceremony in London on 30 October.