Know-how from telemedicine supplier Advisor Join has been adopted throughout NHS Lanarkshire Well being Board, following a profitable three-day trial with the Scottish Ambulance Service.
The Advisor Join app goals to attach Scottish Ambulance paramedics in Lanarkshire with native A&E consultants inside 4 seconds by way of the ‘name earlier than convey’ pathway to allow entry to fast, specialist recommendation for sufferers with non-life-threatening circumstances.
Clinicians on the Scottish Ambulance Service can use the app to direct sufferers to probably the most appropriate care – resembling particular models or self-care recommendation – serving to to unencumber busy A&E departments, and guarantee sufferers obtain care in a well timed trend. Communication takes place by way of a telephone name or safe and GDPR-compliant photograph messages, or messages.
A&E consultants may use the app to get recommendation from consultants working in different specialties to assist make sure that sufferers obtain the precise care from the offset.
In the course of the three-day pilot, which occurred from 23 to 25 August 2023, there have been 74 calls positioned, which have been answered in three seconds on common. Consequently, 4 in 5 sufferers averted pointless A&E admissions, with 60% of the sufferers being cared for locally.
Dr Gordon McNeish, emergency medication guide and undertaking lead at NHS Lanarkshire Well being Board, stated: “We’ve been working with Advisor Join for the previous couple of years to enhance affected person expertise, providing professional-to-professional contact for Scottish Ambulance Service clinicians to talk to A&E consultants inside our three acute hospitals in Lanarkshire.
“The undertaking appears to be like to extend the utilization of this service by encouraging paramedics to debate most non-life-threatening instances with a devoted A&E guide. They will additionally entry different neighborhood companies and pathways which are all aimed toward maintaining a affected person at house the place acceptable.”
Jonathan Patrick, CEO of Advisor Join, stated: “Advisor Join’s platform has proven throughout the UK that, when clinicians discuss with one another, sufferers get higher care sooner. By making it ‘enterprise as ordinary’, Lanarkshire is hard-wiring higher care in to their native space.
“In fact, for paramedics working in rural areas, this can be a gamechanger. Quite than making pointless journeys to and from hospital, sufferers can get probably the most acceptable care and paramedics can react extra shortly to the subsequent name. NHS Lanarkshire deserves an infinite quantity of credit score for being on the forefront of healthcare know-how and making sufferers their precedence.”
NHS Lanarkshire Advisor Join is now utilizing Advisor Join as routine follow throughout NHS Lanarkshire. The ‘name Earlier than convey’ undertaking was formally adopted by NHS Lanarkshire on 1 November 2023.
Advisor Join stated that in 2023 150,000 aged and frail sufferers have been saved out of hospital by its know-how, which has a devoted acute frailty line for sufferers with significantly complicated wants.