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UK children's hospital welcomes Apple technologyTuesday 12th June 2012

A key children's hospital in London,UK, is making a major shift towardsintegrating Apple technology –benefiting staff and patients.

A key project at Great Ormond StreetChildren's Hospital (GOSH) has beenin cardiology where clinicians now useiPads and iMacs for instant access to3D images of patients' hearts whileplanning for surgery, or even in theatre.

Future Labs Group worked with GOSH and its existing partners to driveforwards the creation of a secure, resilient and Apple architecture.

The new architecture is capable of scaling to securely integrate the mobiledevices GOSH uses now, as well as to handle future needs.

These devices are used by an ever-growing number of staff includingorgan donor nurses, paediatric intensive care specialists, heart surgeonsand hospital technicians.

They are also used by the Children's Acute Transport Service (CATS) teamwhich goes out to critically ill children in the community, stabilises them,and gets them safely to hospital.

Mark Large, GOSH IT Director, said: "Our clinicians told us that they wantto use Apple technology, so it is something we are embracing, and havecreated one of the best infrastructures in the world to make it happen.

"What is particularly beneficial is that they can now do things like joinconference calls, or access information, no matter where they are. Thatcan make a real difference if something happens like an urgent caseconference is called to discuss treatment for a very sick child. No matterwhere the members of the care team are, they can join the conference ontheir iPad."

Mark Large believes that mobility is vital. Clinicians need to be able toaccess data and update records in real-time, while they are at the bedside,to ensure each patient can get the best care. For many nurses and alliedhealth professionals (AHPs) an iPod Touch is ideal because they cansimply slip it in a pocket when it's not in use.

For others, such as doctors using complex clinical software, the largerscreen of the iPad is more appropriate. "Mobility is part of a wider journey,one that involves the move from paper to electronic medical records, somobility has to be ready and working for that major transition" added Large.

While the number of Apple devices in use at GOSH is still limited, morecan be introduced whenever the trust wishes to start new projects.

One of the big tests of whether Apple devices could meet the rigorousdemands on secure and convenient data sharing involved theimplementation of an upgraded Cardiology MRI PACS system.

The solution, deployed over a single weekend by Kanteron Systems, hasbrought benefits for patient treatment and safety.

Clinicians can now access 3D images of children's hearts, using Osirixsoftware. Not only can the images now be more easily shared anddiscussed by colleagues in order to decide the best approach to surgery,

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Hospital IT Europe - UK children's hospital welcomes Apple technology http://www.hospitaliteurope.com/article/28830

when the surgeon goes into theatre they can call up the images directlyfrom central storage onto an iMac workstation in theatre.

Continuing, Large said: "The technology is quite incredible – and it is allabout patient safety. It's enabling our clinicians to take on complex andchallenging heart surgery and to perform it safely.

"They can see exactly what the heart is like, from any angle, before theystart and the images they need are available to them instantly at any time. And the importance of timeliness cannot be underestimated - putting theApple technology on the GOSH network has made the retrieval of imagesin theatre simple and quick. This is a classic example of how IT should beused to help front line clinical activity".

The deployment had to be carried out with immense precision – forexample 10.5 million images were migrated to the two new Apple serversin a single weekend.

Large said: "We brought in Kanteron because they had a good track recordand understand everything about Osirix. They spent a lot of time with usand planned everything. Our experience with them was absolutelyphenomenal, everything seemed so easy to them."

ICU clinicians have also been making extensive use of iPads where theyfind them ideal for inputting data at the bedside. According to Dr JoeBrierley, consultant intensivist, they are also valuable for consultation andtraining. "Even if I'm somewhere else I can drop in on a ward roundremotely and be involved with a patient's treatment," he said.

Infection control is a key concern for ICU, which treats some of the sickestand most vulnerable children and young people, including some whoseimmune systems have been weakened.

In these circumstances mobile devices can be a severe infection risk.However GOSH has been trialing a ruggedized, fluid-proof, clinical case foriPads, known as Flipad™ that is being developed by Future Labs Group.

CEO Mike Casey said: "The infection control team at GOSH work to anabsolute gold standard, so I wanted their input. I also wanted to work withclinicians so they could contribute to its design."

Dr Brierley said: "It's so useful to be able to input data when you areactually with the patient. But you can't run the risk of infection. So it wasreally reassuring to know that you could sit there and acquire data on aniPad which was completely clean."

GOSH is one of a series of trusts which are potentially interested in usingFlipPad in order to further extend the settings in which iPads can be used.

Great Ormond Street Hospital

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Hospital IT Europe - UK children's hospital welcomes Apple technology http://www.hospitaliteurope.com/article/28830