Northwick Park Hospital is the first in the country to pilot Infinity for porter requests
Northwick Park Hospital has become the first hospital in the country to pilot Infinity in its A&E department, where staff will use it to hail a porter on their mobile phone.
Infinity will replace the existing practice of staff filling out a two-page request form, reducing the time that they spend making and following-up portering requests.
This project will give porters instant, up-to-date information about the patient they are collecting. Staff currently report that they often experience problems, including porters not being able to read the writing on the request form, not being notified of cancellations, and no-one being able to proactively track the progress of each request.
Infinity will allow staff to see in real time when a patient has been collected and arrives at their destination.If successful at this pilot stage, Infinity will be rolled out across Northwick Park, Ealing and Central Middlesex hospitals.
A&E staff, who have welcomed the pilot, will be provided with iPhones with Infinity Health already loaded onto them. iPad portering stations in various areas across the department will make sure that staff who don’t have one of the iPhones can still book a porter.
More than 400 clinical and non-clinical staff will be involved in the pilot, including more than 60 porters.
“This is a positive step towards helping us manage patient flow. The hospital is very busy and demand on portering services is always high.
“The app will help reduce the amount of time taken to request a porter or the need to chase requests up. It also allows us to add special instructions for the porter, such as the need to carry patient records, oxygen, or support equipment.”
— Dr Miriam Harris
Lead Consultant for Emergency Medicine
Northwick Park Hospital
“The collaboration with Infinity Health demonstrates how working with the right partners and technology helps resolve everyday issues and genuinely improves the daily working lives of our staff and ultimately improve patient care.”
— Sonia Patel
Chief Information Officer
London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust
