Judie Simmons-Jeffs (centre) with Gill Ogden and Sarah Wilkinson viewing the Somerset Cancer Register on one of the new iPads
New iPads from the Blue Skies Hospitals Fund are enabling staff at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to improve care for cancer patients.
The iPads are being used in conjunction with the Somerset Cancer Register (SCR) which was originally developed for the collection of cancer waiting times in 2003.
This application has developed over the years and is now used as a tool in live multidisciplinary team (MDT) meetings to assist clinicians in the management of the patient pathway as well as for recording data to support clinical audits at a national and regional level.
Judie Simmons-Jeffs, Cancer Data Manager for the Trust, said: “Although we have been using SCR since 2004, documentation has always been retrospective.
“Working in collaboration with SCR and contributing towards SCR development by being a testing site, we have implemented new technologies available to work in a live environment.
“After securing funding from the Blue Skies Hospital Fund, we have been able to issue all Cancer Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) teams with iPads.
“This now supports CNS teams to input accurate, real time electronic information for cancer patients.
“The benefits are that patient care can be tracked and investigations and treatments are recorded promptly. This results in improved communication and reduced duplication.”
SCR is helping to improve outcomes for cancer patients to shape and develop the service provided. Cancer teams now have the ability to view, update and share appropriate parts of the patient record across the cancer alliance quickly and easily at the point of care, 24 hours per day.
Sarah Wilkinson, a Breast Cancer CNS for the Trust, said: “SCR has enabled us to work more efficiently when attending appointments with our patients, particularly with the use of our iPads.
“SCR also allows for improved sharing of information between the Breast Care Nurses and other Clinical Nurse Specialists such as acute oncology.”
Jessica Jones, Macmillan Clinical Transformation Lead for the Trust, added: “Metrics are currently being devised by the Cancer Alliance to monitor performance in relation to the implementation of recovery package interventions.
“Reports developed by Judie Simmons-Jeffs from SCR have enabled the teams to capture the baseline data required to show the number of patients who have been offered the elements of the recovery package. For example, reports to show the number of Holistic Needs Assessments or Treatment Summaries recorded.”