Healthcare professionals in Scotland working on smartphones and tablets will be able to update patient information and record medical tasks at the point of patient contact following the launch of TotalMobile’s management workflow solution, the TotalMobile App Platform, in Scotland. 

Building on its experience in local government and social care markets, TotalMobile has identified ways the software can benefit a wide range of healthcare organisations and users. The solution draws information from multiple systems to a mobile device, to allow users to reduce their time on administrative tasks and travelling, spending more time on patient-related activity. The idea is to increase both productivity and quality of care throughout the care pathway, whilst at the same time delivering efficiency savings.

The TotalMobile App Platform supports health boards as they address many of the challenges in the new Scottish eHealth strategy 2011-2017 and the Healthcare Quality Strategy for NHSScotland. It also responds to the issues raised by the fact that more people in Scotland than ever before are now living with long-term conditions: around 2m people, or 40 per cent of the population, and rising.

Furthermore, health boards will be able to achieve benefits similar to those seen by participants in studies such as the Department of Health’s recent National Mobile Health Worker Project. Benefits included an increase of more than 100 per cent in contact activity and time spent with patients; a 33 per cent reduction in time spent travelling; and a fall in the number of ‘no access’ visits of up to 50 per cent.

“NHSScotland has recognised the role that technology can play in helping staff to deliver safer, higher quality care more efficiently, with the Scottish government pledging to provide around £80m a year to health boards, allowing them to access and operate the latest technology,” said TotalMobile CEO, Colin Reid. “Providing effective mobile tools for staff – whether in the community or working across multiple locations within hospitals – will be key to delivering both efficiency savings and high quality care. We think our many years of expertise in supporting public sector mobile workers, including those working in social care, will certainly benefit health boards in Scotland.”

The TotalMobile App Platform overcomes challenges in connectivity by allowing staff to securely login to the application offline, for devices temporarily without a signal. There are also a range of security measures in place to not only secure data on the device, but also during transmission to back-office systems, so information such as electronic patient records are never exposed, even if a device is stolen.

TotalMobile says the solution is low-cost, easily deployed, quickly implemented and delivers a rapid return on investment, without the need to replace current infrastructures, or to buy  forms or digipens.

You can download a free whitepaper on mobile workforce solutions for the healthcare sector here.