NHS Lothian’s Neonatal Unit, wider Children’s Services and Department of Clinical Neurosciences have been highly commended for their innovative partnership with digital healthcare company vCreate at the Innovate Awards.
The awards, delivered in partnership between the AHSN Network and NHS Confederation, celebrate innovation in health and care. This year, they received over 190 entries from across the UK.
vCreate allows the secure sharing of videos into clinical teams and out to families. NHS Lothian first trialled the vCreate technology within the Neonatal Unit at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and then extended this to the Paediatric Critical Care Unit in the Children’s Hospital in March 2020. When parents can’t be at the Neonatal or Paediatric Intensive Care Units, staff share photo and video updates via the system to reduce separation anxiety for families and to aid remote breast milk expression.
Following its success, measured by the number of parents using the system and positive feedback from surveys, the Neonatal Follow Up team worked with vCreate to develop the technology to allow parents to share videos of their babies during crucial neurodevelopmental stages for clinical review.
NHS Lothian further extended the collaboration to both its adult and paediatric Neurology tertiary centres. When concerned about an unknown event, upon referral patients and carers can upload smartphone-recorded videos of potential seizures or movement assessments to the cloud-based platform. The clinical team is alerted to the new patient communication, and from the videos and corresponding metadata, can make a diagnosis, recommend further tests, or provide reassurance.
The Speech and Language Therapy teams are now also working with vCreate as part of a Test of Change pilot.
The Innovate Awards commended the partnership that has been established between NHS Lothian and vCreate, where successes and feedback are shared to enable further product development, supporting both clinicians as well as patients and families. This collaboration has led to the introduction of many new features including vCreate’s multi-language tool, enabling the auto-translation of messages and forms into 12 different languages to better support patients and families whose first language isn’t English.
Since implementing the technology, NHS Lothian has supported more than 2,500 families and patients with the secure sharing of over 11,000 videos. 96% of clinical users feel that vCreate has improved the quality of care and 89% of paediatric clinicians using the system feel that reviewing videos has helped aid their decision-making.
Allister Short, Director of Women’s and Children’s Services, NHS Lothian said, “I am delighted that our partnership with vCreate has been highly commended at the Innovate Awards. Across the Neonatal Unit, the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People and Department of Clinical Neurosciences, many teams and individuals have worked tirelessly to not only successfully introduce this technology but to ensure that it supports clinicians, patients, and families in a meaningful way. Recognition at the awards is testament to that drive and determination.
“The use of this technology has supported many patients and families, offering reassurance as well as helpful functionality, but it has also supported our clinical teams to deliver the best patient care possible.
“I look forward to seeing the partnership with vCreate continue to develop as we explore how the technology can support more services, patients, families and clinical teams.”
Ben Moore, Founder at vCreate, said: “We’re honoured to receive such high commendation for our partnership with NHS Lothian. This recognition underscores our commitment to improving healthcare through innovative technology, and we are excited to continue our collaboration to further enhance patient care, family support, and clinical workflows.”
