West Middlesex innovative project shortlisted for awards

West Middlesex University Hospital was last year shortlisted for various awards, including numerous nominations for the Online Point of Care Testing project (POCT) which helps reduce patient waiting times by giving faster and improved quality test results.

Project lead, Dr Richard Fink said, “The study which was sponsored by the NHS London Innovation Fund was carried out in the A&E department. We showed that patient waiting times could be reduced if certain diagnostic tests were carried out by POCT devices.”

The project linked POCT devices such as an I-Stat Analyser, which is used for routine pathology diagnostic tests at the patient’s bedside, to an electronic clinical order communications system (ICE) via the hospital’s computer network. This method of electronically requesting and receiving test results lead to improved data quality and fast test results.

The feedback from the A&E department was very positive, Project co-ordinator,Ashfaq Gilkarsaid: “Consultants were delighted with it; there were certain cases of sepsis and cardiac arrhythmias where it was particularly useful to obtain rapid test results.” 

The POCT project was nominated for the various awards in 2013 including the British Medical Journal’s awards for 'Transforming patient care through Technology’ and the Health Service Journal’s efficiency awards in three categories; ‘Diagnostics’, ‘Pathology Services’ and ‘Information Technology’. This project was also nominated in the following awards:

• The Pharmaceutical Market Excellence Awards: ‘Excellence in provision of Patient Services’
• The CogentUKLife Science Skills: Healthcare Science Award' 2013.
• The Health Investor awards 2013; ‘IT innovator of the year’ and ‘Diagnostic provider of the year’.
• EHI awards 2013 ‘Patient Safety’ and the IT healthcare Champion award
• The British Computer Society ‘UK IT Industry awards 2013’; ‘Healthcare Technical Product