Mobile Technology Needed, Stat

About a year ago, pushed to the brink of inefficiency, Nottingham decided it must invest in modern technology, and fast. The hospital's IT group implemented Cisco's end-to-end network. It then purchased Cisco Cius tablets for nurses and doctors and worked with a third-party app developer called NerveCenter to build an Android app (also called NerveCenter) that works as a task-assignment workflow tool.

After patient information and doctor and nurse assignments are entered into the PC system, the Hospital@Night coordinator can allocate tasks via the NerveCenter app on a Cisco Cius tablet. The junior doctors receive assignments on their mobile devices be it a Cius tablet or a BlackBerry device, which NerveCenter also supports.

The doctor accepts the assignment using the NerveCenter app and it is logged. The whole staff can see if the task is being done, who the patient is and which doctor or nurse is assigned to that patient.

"Coordinators are not duplicating requests by paging and disrupting a doctor," says Fearn. "We know that every job is being done or is assigned. There's an audit trail."