Voice-Care® International Ltd is delighted to announce that its award-winning Surgical Workflow Solution is to be deployed into Stockport NHS Foundation Trust to enhance the delivery of the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist (SSC) and NatSSIPs 8 by utilising technology to improve performance, safety and error reduction.
Designed to progressively transform patient safety and care through the utilisation of voice-directed technology, Voice-Care is an easy-to-use, low-cost and dynamic digital solution which empowers users to work totally hands and eyes free and enables the verbal recording of Surgical Safety Checklists before, during and at the end of a procedure, enabling easier and faster compliance for clinicians, whilst vastly increasing positive patient outcomes.
With operating theatres remaining one of the most cognitively-overloaded environments in healthcare, with human factor failures underpinning most surgical incidents, Voice-Care's voice-guided prompts support NatSSIPS, LocSSIPs and WHO checklist compliance by reducing reliance on human memory during critical procedural steps.
This ground-breaking technology will be adopted into all 17 operating theatres at Stockport NHS Foundation Trust in order to mitigate the risks of Never Events while addressing checklist fatigue, communication and the development of a more responsive patient-centred system.
Despite the physical and mental limitations of the Multidisciplinary Team (MDT), Voice-Care prioritises safer systems and environments, having been designed to enhance the interaction between the MDT and technology to reduce the hierarchical gradient and to guarantee clear, concise and unambiguous communication.
Stockport NHS Foundation Trust will be the first NHS Trust to implement Voice-Care for the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist. It is currently being implemented in other NHS Trusts to provide support for Local Safety Standards for Invasive Procedures (LocSSIPs).
Dr. Nigel Roberts, Associate Divisional Director for Theatres, Critical Care and Anaesthetics at Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, National Speaker on Patient Safety and Founder of the ‘Never Event Group’ comments,
Voice-Care has the ability to intervene to prevent patient harm, including the retention of guidewires, thereby supporting the Multidisciplinary Team and, more importantly, alleviate the impact and trauma experienced by the patient. Voice-Care aligns directly with NatSSIPs’ goal of making safety processes easier to do, correctly turning safety-critical information into actionable, measurable improvement data. Theatres and other invasive theatre locations must embrace this technology if the MDT and organisation prioritise patient safety, as Voice-Care can assist in supporting, promoting and standardising essential safety measures. It tackles one of the NHS’ greatest challenges; ensuring patient safety, compliance and efficiency in every ward and operating theatre - not through more bureaucracy, but through intelligent, human-centred design.
Philip Jarrett, Executive Director at Voice-Care comments, “After several years of complexed development, working with several Trusts and trialling our platform day and night, along with significant time invested in securing all of the relevant governance and compliance requirements, we are delighted to be deploying our first of its kind, Voice-Guided Workflow (VGW) Solution into the healthcare sector. We are extremely privileged and grateful to be working alongside the highly-respected Dr. Nigel Roberts, who recognised the true value and benefits of Voice-Care relating to patient safety and care from the get-go.
This mutually-beneficial partnership with Stockport NHS Foundation Trust has been quick to expedite and position Voice-Care across its highly-impressive Operating Theatre Department, and we couldn’t be happier to be working alongside this brilliant Trust based here in the Northwest, which has offered its firm support in order to deliver a first-class, state-of-the-art product within the hospital.
The team working alongside Nigel, including Steven Worthington (Theatres Governance Lead), David Kendall Lowther (Assistant Directorate Manager) and the wider Theatre, Digital and IT Teams have been excellent and we are elated to have Voice-Care adopted within their prestigious footprint.”