Sheffield Children's Hospital: Why nurses will be on their phones more on the wards

Following several months of testing and staff training, the system has been launched on wards one, two and three of the hospital, with view to rolling it out across the hospital’s other inpatient wards and emergency department in the coming weeks.

The Careflow Vitals app means nurses will now being using their Trust IPhones and IPads on wards and at bedsides regularly. Although it may look like they are just updating their social media, they’re actually recording patients’ crucial information in this new way of working, hospital bosses stress.

Dr Jeff Perring, Executive Medical Director at Sheffield Children’s, said: “Vitals is one of a number of Digital Journey projects which are helping the Trust to move from paper-based activities to digital solutions, and improving processes and patient care.

“Recording patient observations via the Vitals app will speed up the process as our nurses can do it instantly in real time and at the bedside. It will allow other health care workers to review PEW charts digitally and away from the patient bedside which will aid communication around patient care.

“Vitals also integrates with our Careflow Connect system which clinicians have been using to digitally record patient handovers at shift changeovers since last summer.

“All our new digital systems which record and store patient information are confidential and secure, so patients and their families and carers have nothing to worry about from these changes.”