Bradford District Care Foundation Trust (BDCT), a mental health provider, have completed their migration to HSCN and use Technomed’s ECG On-Demand platform in hospital, community and home settings. They perform ECGs for antipsychotic drug monitoring and physical health checks.
The trust previously used paper-based ECG machines and the ward doctor would interpret the generated ECG trace and manually input its data into the system. Depending upon the clinical need, the trace would then be posted to an acute care provider for analysis before results were returned to the BDCT. This process could take up to two weeks and could delay patient care.
With Technomed’s HSCN-connected 12-Lead ECG machines, the trust has experienced a faster process. Average turnaround times of 15 minutes from the clinician’s initial upload of a 12-lead ECG and 2 hours for a Holter report to be returned securely have been achieved. The purely digital process eliminates the need to use paper and frees up the hospital’s clinicians, allowing more time to attend to patients.
Much shorter waiting times have significantly improved patient care as more serious cardiac conditions can be diagnosed earlier. The ECG is examined and reported by an experienced clinician in near real-time for serious ailments, so patients no longer need to be transferred between settings for confirmatory diagnoses. This is particularly significant for BDCT, as mental health patients are often reluctant to attend conventional healthcare settings resulting in shorter life expectancies than the general population. BDCT now have the ability to perform medical checks on their patients in familiar environments helping to address this inequality in life expectancy.
HSCN and Technomed have also enabled BDCT to think more broadly and widely about obtaining other clinical diagnostic technologies to ensure that they cater for every patient need.