Vodafone gives mobile health a shot in the arm

The London North West Healthcare NHS Trust has announced a partnership with Vodafone, in a deal which further indicates the diversification of business services for telcos, and highlights the growing importance of mobile health.

The operator, alongside mobile solution provider TotalMobile, has provided the health service trust with a mobile working solution to 245 staff across the Brent, Ealing and Harrow district nursing teams. The specific solution in question integrates the trust’s patient record system with a mobile workforce application to enable staff to access patient records while in the field.

As well as patient record access for staff, the trust has claimed the system will enable it to reduce clinical risk, increase the accuracy of patient information and free up more time otherwise taken up by admin.

“Mobile working provides an opportunity to modernise and develop more streamlined services, making better use of valuable resources,” said Shelly Roberts, Project Manager – Mobile Working, London North West Healthcare NHS Trust. “Vodafone and TotalMobile have shown a good understanding of a District Nursing service and have been very responsive. The implementation of mobile working is long awaited by community services and it has been great to see the excitement across the service as the solution has been rolled out.”

With pressure on public sector services to maximise the efficiency of its time, investments and staff, mobile services in the health sector appears to have a compelling value proposition. Colin Reid, TotalMobile’s CEO believes mobile solutions enable health providers to spend more time delivering care services to its patients.

“The main challenge experienced by Healthcare providers is maximising the amount of time being spent delivering care to patients. Between the need to re-key information into record systems and lengthy trips to and from the office, large portions of the day are spent not delivering care. Because of this, more and more Healthcare providers are looking towards mobile working technology, to deliver more time to care and undertake more patient visits every day. We’re pleased to be working with Vodafone to offer the TotalMobile solution to London North West Healthcare NHS Trust, and excited to see the range of benefits they will experience from using the platform.”

E-Health is on the rise, with Telstra recently moving into the field with the announcement of its new business division, Telstra Health, in partnership with Swiss telemedicine company Medgate.