Monthly archives: January 2019

Healthcare science innovations event: 15 January

We will be hosting a healthcare science innovations event on Tuesday 15 January in the Anne Gibson committee room from 12.30pm-2pm.

The special event will feature presentations from Melvina Barsby, Advanced Cardiac Physiologist, Claire Lingard, Principal Clinical Scientist and Greg James, Senior Clinical Scientist.

A buffet lunch will also be provided from 12.30pm-1pm.

For more information please contact j.croasdale@nhs.net.

Unity end user training to be completed by 31 January

New dates have been released for the Unity end user training, and managers are asked to ensure their teams are trained by Thursday 31 January.

To book onto a course see the training schedule on Connect. Unity end user training will be delivered by role – please see Course Content Brochure. Courses are also available for those who require view only access to Unity.

There is a how to book Unity training guide available too for your reference.

If you would like a member of the Unity team to come to your area to assist with the booking of your staff, please contact swbh.informaticsbookings@nhs.net giving availability and a contact number, and arrangements will be made at a suitable time for you. The team will also help with any queries regarding the training and the booking system.

Choose your own e-books

The library and knowledge service is launching an online portal that has a wide selection of eBook content with flexibility to read by chapter or the whole book. You can also download eBooks for offline reading on your desktop, tablet or mobile phone.

You can access it with your SWBH OpenAthens username and password at http://bit.ly/swbhebooks.

If you are not registered with Athens, you can do so here https://openathens.nice.org.uk/. Fill in the form and you will be emailed a link to activate your account and choose your password. If you have any questions please contact the library on the details below.

Ask your library colleagues for any queries on this resource at swbh.library@nhs.net or call 0121 507 3587.

Guides are available on our website swbhlibrary.wordpress.com.

OPAT referrals new email address

All referrals across the Trust for outpatient intravenous antibiotic therapy (OPAT) which refers to the practice of treating patients with intravenous antibiotics in an ambulatory setting, in a dedicated OPAT clinic, with immediate effect should be sent to swbh.medical-infusion-suite@nhs.net.

For more information please call ext. 4808.

Heartbeat: Patients put their creativity into action

Talented students from Sandwell College made their first trip to our hospitals last month, ready to inspire patients through a variety of simple and fun arts and crafts activities.

The creative workshops, which are co-organised by the charity Kissing it Better and Sandwell College, aim to bring arts into hospitals to “brighten up” patients’ days. The students visited Lyndon Ground and Lyndon 4 wards in November.

Jackie Roxborough, Project Lead and Practitioner for Kissing it Better, explained more to Heartbeat: “We are delighted to work with Sandwell College and the Trust to deliver this initiative.

“After talking to patients and staff, we felt that having creative workshops within hospitals would greatly benefit patients. Most of the time, patients spend time alone in the hospital without many engaging activities.

“We have worked with Sandwell College on other projects, and felt that patients would benefit greatly from sessions with art students. We are glad that this initiative has been taken on board by both organisations.”

Mardeen Blbas, one of the students, said: “I’m so happy to be part of this project. When I first heard about it, I couldn’t wait to come in and work with patients.

“It was a great joy to see the young patients’ smiles when I showed them how to colour 3D animation pictures. I feel that I’m part of a large community where my skills can make a difference to someone.”

Bashir Hewer, a stroke patient on Lyndon 4, added: “It’s such a wonderful initiative. Although I couldn’t do much as my condition affects the movement of my hands, I still learned how to fold a paper poppy flower. The students brightened up my day, so I just want to thank them a lot for coming in and spending time with us.”

The workshops will continue from now until next year. Posters have been put up across the hospitals with more details. If you feel your patients would benefit from this initiative, please contact Jackie via email at jackieroxborough@outlook.com.

City Hospital generator testing schedule 2019

The proposed annual generator testing schedule for City Hospital is now available.

Generator testing schedule for City Hospital

For more information please contact ian.hawthorn@nhs.net.

#UnityIsComing

By Dominic LeGros, Informatics Nurse

Well, blog number 2; hopefully I’ve still got at least one reader!

Do you ever feel like you are drowning in a sea of paper? Drug charts, observation charts, stool charts, food charts, fluid balance; the tide seems to keep rising as we invent new bits of paper every day… It even chases us around, look in your pocket – go on, have a look, I’ll wait here.

Well? Did you find a small forest of bits of paper trying to take over your pocket? Handover sheets, maybe the odd paper towel with reminders scribbled on? Yet when you want a particular piece of paper, you can guarantee it’ll be the one that’s gone into hiding (until you get home and it jumps out of your pocket and falls on the floor).

One of the key principles of Unity, and all electronic patient records is to try and remove as many of these rogue bits of dead tree and contain as much information in one place. This way you always know where critical information on your patients is, and you can access it from anywhere rather than having to hunt down the right folder. And we get to help the environment by chopping down fewer trees to make all of these bits of paper.

Don’t get me wrong, we are not trying to get rid of all paper, with the current technology available to us, and our partner organisations, it just isn’t possible – yet.

What does this mean for our patients? After all, they are the reason we are all here… Hunting around for bits of paper takes time, leafing through a three-inch thick folder to find that one sheet you are looking for is time we spend not doing what we are here for; caring for our patients.

The ability to access a patient’s record from anywhere means that potentially deteriorating patients can be reviewed quickly as clinicians can review the notes before they even arrive on the ward.

Unity is coming, and #paperisgoing

#hellomynameis… Dom, and I am one of your informatics nurses.

#Unity–releasing time to care

Unity targeted coaching programme

As part of the pre go-live preparations and engagement the Unity clinical informatics team will be visiting departments over the next 15 weeks to deliver targeted coaching to clinical colleagues.

These will be short (typically five minutes) and normally one-to-one micro-coaching sessions to ensure that our clinical colleagues are prepared for when Unity goes live later this year.

It is critical to stress that this is not a training programme and is not a replacement for the formal end user training which is a requirement for all colleagues (including those that have already undertaken digital champion and/or early adopter training).

The team will endeavour to avoid causing any disruption to ward routines and have written to ward managers to allow team members the time to participate in these sessions and start to get familiar with Unity.

For further information contact swbh.SWBH-Team-Informatics-Nurses@nhs.net

Inpatient endocrine referrals new email address

A new mailbox for inpatient endocrine referrals has been set up.

All referrals across the Trust going forward with immediate effect should now be sent to swbh.endocrine-referrals@nhs.net.

For more information please contact harpal.tiwana@nhs.net.

British Sign Language Level 1 Training

As an organisation we are committed to both staff training and improving our patient experience, as such we are commissioning a Signature Level 1 Award in British Sign Language.

This is a fully accredited course, designed to teach learners to communicate with deaf people in British Sign Language (BSL) on a range of topics that involve simple, everyday language use. They will gain basic skills and confidence in production and reception of BSL.

The qualification is divided into three units:

• Introduction to BSL
• Conversational BSL
• Communicate in BSL about Everyday Life.

To achieve the full Level 1 Award in British Sign Language, candidates must pass all 3 units.

The course is scheduled to start this month and is planned for Wednesday afternoons 3pm-6pm and will be taking place at Sandwell Education Centre.

Should you wish to put yourself forward please contact swb-tr.SWBH-GM-EqualityDiversity@nhs.net and a member of the Equality & Diversity Team will be in touch.