Tonic on the wards
Jul 2 2009 by Sue Scott, Evening Gazette
A REDCAR company is transforming the way hospital staff work.
iBleep, a communication and data retrieval system developed by MD Roy Walters, is set to replace the pager - immortalised in countless TV doctor and nurse shows - and give NHS trusts an insight for the first time into how clinicians work.
With handsets already operating in half a dozen hospitals in England, Scotland and New Zealand, Mr Walters said he fully expected the company to hit £1m turnover within the financial year. Another 28 countries have expressed an interest in adopting the technology, which is driven by sophisticated software operating across a mobile phone or other wireless network.
“It’s logical that every hospital eventually comes to use iBleep,” said Mr Walters. “Pagers are a legacy of the Seventies and Eighties. A doctor probably gets paged six or seven times for the same call. We make sure the call is a one off and all the relevant information is available to him.”
iBleep, which colour codes the calls according to priority, also conveys critical patient information.
“When the doctor reads the call a signal goes back to the ward station and tells them he’s prioritising it. But the communications system is only one half of the product,” said Mr Walters. “Management are very interested in the figures and the response times.”
By providing detailed analysis of the critical path between initial call and response, iBleep could revolutionise the way hospitals rota staff, cutting costs and improving individual performance.
“It might be possible to say we do not need as many house doctors on as we did before, leading to a less tired workforce,” said Mr Walters.
The technology has taken New Zealand by storm where nurses are raising 10,000 calls a month using iBleep. “This is an international first. There is nothing like it anywhere,” said Mr Walters, who stumbled across the idea while working in a local hospital.
He said the technology potentially had several applications beyond the health service.
