It is an example of advanced collaboration in the NHS which will enable clinicians and other specialists to share information and provide more effective, complete patient care.
Kent and Medway Cancer Network is connecting all of the health professionals involved in cancer care across Kent, using the IOCOM video collaboration software running on the NHS N3 network alongside its existing collaborative patient database. Their aim is to enable more effective communications and decision-making at all stages of the cancer pathway. The PCT is to run IOCOM on its existing Community of Interest Network, COIN, and will also use IOCOM to conduct desktop meetings and link in to the cancer network.
The benefit to cancer patients is simple. The collaborative video system means that when a patient arrives for their next appointment, staff will already have latest details of their condition and will know exactly where they are in their treatment.
IOCOM will enable greater participation at the regular Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) meetings. These are twice-weekly meetings where clinicians, specialists and consultants meet to consult together on every aspect of each patient's treatment and care. They will be able to use IOCOM to view diagnostic-quality images of patients and patients' scans in the meetings and discuss them together, and if a team member should be unable to attend in person, they can dial in and join the meeting from wherever they happen to be, even if they are working from home.
Alan Lowe, Chief Operating Officer of St Vincent's Healthcare Consulting, explains how IOCOM will enable more information sharing in the cancer pathway: "Kent is a huge county but cancer treatment is becoming more centralised, so staff and patients have to travel to several centres. It's possible for a patient to be seen in Margate, have surgery in Maidstone, then travel to Canterbury for radiotherapy and have chemotherapy in Margate. Travel time was becoming an issue. IOCOM lets everyone involved in cancer care see images of patients' scans and talk through what is on the screen, so staff can be involved without necessarily travelling to meetings."
This new way of working depended upon finding a system that would deliver images of patients' x-rays and scans at a sufficiently high quality for diagnosis.
"We considered several video conferencing systems, but most were designed for fixed MDT services and involved a lot of expensive software modules," explains Noyida James, Senior Project Manager responsible for ICT Projects at Kent and Medway Health Informatics Service. "We wanted something more flexible that would also give us diagnostic-quality images. With IOCOM, the picture is carried as data, not video, so the picture is never pixelated. IOCOM seemed to work straight away and there was no configuration to do, so it needed very little setup time."
IOG guidelines say that GPs with special interest (GPSIs), who treat some cancers themselves, should also participate in MDT meetings.
As IOCOM is running on the N3 network, other NHS partners, such as Kent's GPs and hospices will be able to link in to the system as well. IOCOM's software can run on a variety of hardware devices. In a clinical setting it is used in multidisciplinary rooms, rapid response telemedia and operating theatres, but in Kent, it will primarily be used for desktop and laptop video collaboration, running on top of the Trusts' existing IT facilities. It fills the need for staff members who can't physically attend MDT meetings, for example, if there is no one else on duty in a department, and they can also use it to monitor critical cases and share the information via NHS mail.
Saving fuel costs and cutting carbon emissions are, of course, important and Kent and Medway expects to make great efficiencies by cutting travel time. However the day-to-day cost of employing highly qualified consultants in the NHS is far greater, so it is even more important that their time is not wasted on non-essential travel.
Kent is installing IOCOM in twelve hospitals and fourteen hospices, as well as its GPs' surgeries and various PCT buildings. They will add district nurses to the system, so that they can use the system, with a laptop, to refer back to a doctor during a home visit. The Trust will maintain a pool of laptops loaded with IOCOM for members of staff who need to use the system occasionally.
Each NHS Hospital Trust in Kent has its own cancer unit. The project links every cancer unit in Kent and every hospital, including Maidstone, Pembury, Kent and Canterbury, right across the county from West Kent to East Grinstead.
"Feedback has been very positive, especially from clinicians," says Noyida James. It is one single system that serves for both basic and clinical collaboration. It works just like a Microsoft application on the PC.
In addition to the desktop usage IOCOM is becoming a the product of choice for Stroke Networks having been chosen by East of England SHA and more recently by the Sussex Stroke Network.
About St Vincents Healthcare Consulting
St Vincent's offer consultancy services to the Healthcare Market and related suppliers who require in depth clinical input to the deployment of cutting edge Clinical Information technology systems that are changing and shaping the way healthcare in the UK is evolving.
St Vincent's Healthcare Consulting are CERTIFIED for Health Services and Clinical Applications by Iocom. St Vincent's consultants contributed heavily to the implementation of Iocom in the National Health Service in the UK.
Our role is to establish product partnerships with well respected software houses who currently service the health market. We complement these partners by offering high level consultants who can deploy the various systems and manage the relevant business transformation.
We also have a proven background in supplying a broad spectrum of interim and contract resource across Healthcare for project-based work.