NEWS Press releases and Case Studies
NEWS RELEASE
28 November Glasgow Radisson Hotel
Cash Strapped NHS Turns to Interactive Mobile Messaging
Two-way text reminder service aims to help NHS Trusts to cut patient DNAs (Did Not Attend), reduce resulting losses of £100 per patient equivalent to over half a billion pounds each year nationwide, and cut waiting lists Alderley Edge and Stirling,
4th November 2008 – In a move to cut the cost of patient DNAs (Did Not Attend) appointments, NHS Trusts across the country are beginning to embrace a two-way SMS text messaging service that securely reminds patients of their hospital out-patient appointments and allows them to reply with a confirmation or to advise that they won't be attending.
Called MARS (Managed Appointment Reminder Service), University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust and Hull and East Yorkshire NHS Trust are just two examples of how NHS Trusts are using the service to cut financial losses from missed appointments. Additionally, a consortium of NHS Trusts in the Midlands have also recently begun deploying the service this month. A missed out-patient appointment costs each Trust £100, bringing the total wasted across the NHS to more than half a billion pounds each year.
In London, where the problem is worst, the loss is more than £134 million. Another example is NHS Scotland where more than £30 million is lost each year through DNAs. According to Dr. Jonathan Fielden* of the British Medical Association, missed appointments "cause huge disruption for patients and hospital staff. Patients need to have more respect for the service, but the NHS also needs to work harder to make appointments more convenient and flexible."
As each NHS Trust has a patient treatment quota to meet, any shortfall means that forward budgets will be cut. DNAs also lead to other patients having to wait longer than necessary for treatment.
The MARS two-way messaging service is very secure and simple to use and is a significant step up from one-way systems. The service sends a text message reminder to the mobiles of patients ahead of an appointment. On receipt, patients are able to note the reminder and can reply back with a "yes" or "no" response if unable to attend.
A returned "no" response allows hospital Administrators to arrange an alternative appointment if required. They also have the opportunity to reduce waiting lists by filling cancelled treatment slots and help the Government hit its 18-week patient treatment targets.
MARS has been developed by communication company Island Communications in conjunction with the NHS, and is delivered to NHS organisations via a C&W’s Catalist Specialist Solutions "framework" contract, which avoids organisations having to Tender for the service. The C&W MARS service uses the highly-secure SMS messaging services of text aggregator Mediaburst to deliver appointment reminders to patients. "MARS is possibly the most effective appointment reminder solution on today's market and comes with an integrated management system giving hospitals instant awareness and measurable effectiveness of the service." Cable&Wireless also provides Trusts with Island Communications' opt-in tool to help collect patient names and mobile numbers. The data is transmitted through a secure on-line system to hospital administrators who then update the hospital or trust PAS (Patient Administration System). About Island Communications
About Cable&Wireless Cable&Wireless is one of the world’s leading international communications companies. It operates through two standalone business units – Europe, Asia & US and International. The Europe, Asia & US business unit (formerly known as the "UK" business) provides enterprise and carrier solutions to the largest users of telecoms services across the UK, US, continental Europe and Asia, and wholesale broadband services in the UK. With experience of delivering connectivity to 153 countries – and an intention to be the first customer-defined communications services business – the focus is on delivering customers a service experience that is second to none. The International business unit operates integrated telecommunications companies in 39 countries offering mobile, broadband, domestic and international fixed line services to residential and business customers, with principal operations in the Caribbean, Panama, Macau, Monaco and the Channel Islands. For more information about Cable&Wireless, go to www.cw.com
* In an interview published in the Daily Mail earlier this year on DNAs.
ISLAND MARS Applications News
Island MARS welcomes South Birmingham PCT April 2009
Island welcomes South Birmingham PCT who selected the C&W MARS Managed Appointment Reminder Service as their key tool to tackle the challenge of Patient appointment non- attendance. The MARS Service is currently rolling out to several key departments including the large Rehab unit. Service and will extend to the Childrens and Families Division in June and shortly afterwards to the Birmingham Dental Hospital.
Hereford Hospitals NHS Trust Go Live on MARS April 2009
Close on the heels of South Birmingham PCT, Hereford Hospitals NHS Trust have selected Island's MARS application offered through the Cable and Wireless Partnership. Service commenced in April 2009 and will expand through localised marketing and Patient awareness throughout the Summer months.
Island MARS welcomes Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust May 2009
The MARS application extends a warm welcome to Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust. Service to several key departments commenced in May 2009 and will extend to many additional departments during the Summer months.
Island MARS welcomes University Hospital Birmingham October 2008
Continuing the success of earlier contracts Island welcomes several Departments from University Hospital to the MARS application which is seen as a key focus for tackling the Trusts costs through non attended Patient appointments.
Satellite Contracts
2nd September 2008 & 25 May 2009
Island win contracts to supply Satellite Communications to Caledonian Airborne Services at Aberdeen. The contract will serve the Caledairs new aircraft contract and includes base stations Antennas and transceiver equipment.
NEWS
1st August 2008 Kilbirnie Flood event. - BBC Scotland News
In the early hours of Friday 1st August the North Ayshire town of Kilbirnie suffered a significant flood event when the river Garnock Burst its banks and caused havoc in the heart of the town.
Many local Businesses were affected aloing with Police and Fire Station which were both badly affected. The resulting damage may take weeks to clear up. Many residents had to be evacuated from their homes by Dinghy. Island Communications were on site to observe the affect of the flooding and to understand the impact iof the event on the local community.
NEWS
Following Islands recognition at the 2007 Scottish Software Awards, Island are back at the 2008 event held in the Raddison hotel Glasgow at the end of November 2008. Island won an award in the Best Environment Softweare solution category.
Award winners at the Scottish Software awards ceremony - Best environment software category
The Island Environment Monitoring System was nominated and shortlisted in two categories:
- Best Embeded Software Solution
- Best Emerging Software Business
NEWS
Case Study - MARS
MARS Managed Appointment Reminder Service
CASE STUDY: HULL AND EAST YORKSHIRE WOMEN AND CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL Combining women’s and children’s services on one site, the £35m development has enabled the Trust to provide flexible, sensitive care of the highest standard to meet the diverse needs of the region’s women and their families. The challenge The Hospital’s Paediatric Outpatients unit provides specialist and general care to children who have been referred to its consultants. While around 15,000 outpatients appointments are scheduled by the unit each year, over 20 per cent of these are not attended by the outpatients, something that the Hospital’s Paediatric Services Manager, Jackie Timson, clearly recognises as an issue to be addressed: “There are lots of reasons why missed outpatients appointments are a concern to us, the most important one being the health and wellbeing of the child,” she says. “First and foremost, we want to ensure that the children under our medical care are receiving the attention and treatment they need to recover fully from any health problems they have experienced. “A further concern for us is the financial impact of missed appointments as the PCT’s do not fund missed appointments. This represents a significant loss to the potential income to the Trust” Finally, in common with all areas of the NHS, the unit is constantly striving to maximise its resources so that it can improve the service it offers to the community. Jackie Timson explains: “One of our aims is reduce the length of time between a patient being referred into the service to receiving treatment, in line with the government 2008 18 week referral to treatment target. Because missed appointments usually need to be rescheduled, the end result is delays for other patients, which makes it harder to achieve this aim.” The solution One of the measures the Paediatric Services unit has introduced to try to reduce the number of missed outpatient appointments is a Managed text messaging reminder service. For the past six months the unit has been piloting the MARS messaging service, which allows staff to send a text message to the parents of outpatients several days before their appointment to remind them to attend. Of a sample of patients who were asked whether or not they would be happy to receive this type of reminder, over 90 %said they would like to, reflecting that in many cases, patients simply forget that they have a forthcoming appointment. The benefits Jackie Timson believes that reminding patients of appointments via the MARS messaging service is playing a valuable part in reducing the number of missed appointments at the unit and we have experienced a drop in the number of patients who would have normally not turned up for their appointment. “Because we’re continually introducing new initiatives to bring the number of missed appointments down, it’s difficult to say how much of this improvement can be attributed to the reminder system and how much to other activities we’re undertaking, such as changing the way we book appointments in the first place. “However, because improving the health and wellbeing of children is so important, we need to use the full range of tools at our disposal to address the problem of missed appointments. As most people have mobile phones these days, this is an obvious method for us to employ. “In some cases it’s unavoidable that an appointment will be missed, but because we include the telephone number of the unit in the reminder we send, patients can call to let us know if they’re not able to attend and in many cases we can allocate their slot to another patient, therefore maximising our capacity and enabling us to meet the 18 week referral to treatment target, which is a further advantage of the system. “Now that the pilot has ended, the challenge going forward is to capture as many mobile phone numbers as we can and integrate the messaging software with our appointments booking system to make the process much more streamlined.” Missed appointments can mean lost revenue for the Trust. Missed appointments within the NHS can have significant health implications as well as financial consequences, so it’s logical for its departments to make use of available technology to address this issue.” Notes:
Summary > Number of Requests No Mobile Number Reminders Sent HEYS 61812 43038 18774 74.87% 25.13% Reminder Response Analysis Summary >
As can be seen, after receipt of their reminder message, 860 Patients have declined their offered appointment. This allows the Hospital to re-book these declined appointments from waiting lists and at least advanced notification was received. The report also shows that 536 patients replied to their text reminder with an “other” Patient response. This is also useful as some of the “Other” responses are also declined appointments with an explanation or indeed confirmation of attendance. Of the No response category the impact of a friendly reminder has reduced DNA (Did not attend) results and improved attendance levels within participating departments. Safety Watch - Dementia Monitoring Solution Island will take its expertise in Location based solutions, tracking and monitoring and related Mobile Management systems designed for Health Sector applications, to help develop a revolutionary new product. Representation on the consortium extends to: Denmark, Estonia, Italy, Spain, Sweden. Island will support the Software Management of the new innovative and unique application as well as Marketing the product to the UK Health and Social Sectors and beyond towards the end of 2008. EU funding for the new project has been granted and project work will continue throughout 2008 to product launch early 2009 Jan 2008 NEWS Feb 2007 ISLAND COMMUNICATIONS TAKES TO THE WATER
Island Communications has announced the availability of CraftAlert, which it says will bring new levels of security and safety for the pleasure boating community. “Theft and vandalism are big problems for boat owners and marina management – the current estimates show that this is a sizable problem in certain parts of the UK, It ranges from expensive items of equipment being stolen to boats simply disappearing from marinas and other mooring facilities.” “The cost of a single piece of equipment ranges from a few hundred to thousands of pounds and boats could be worth up to hundreds of thousands or more, but surprisingly insurance companies do not require owners to have alarms fitted to their boats”. CraftAlert, which has been developed in conjunction with Justfone, provides boat owners and marina management with a cost-effective remote real-time monitoring solution. The alarm solution gives boat owners immediate SMS notification of alerts and changes of status aboard their boat and allows onboard devices to be managed. The flexibility of CraftAlert means that it can provide detailed information about the current status of a wide range of conditions on the entire boat rather than just simply provide alerts on forced entry provided by normal alarm systems. The CraftAlert solution also has an integrated GPS receiver to give accurate location information on the current position of the boat. “For example, if power from the pontoon berth is cut, then the boat owner or marina management will be immediately alerted via a text message wherever they happen to be,” said Ken. “This allows them to quickly determine if this is a real supply outage or the event is related to theft. The GPS technology is linked to web based access to check the vessel’s position and this can also notify owners or marina management of any unauthorised movement of the boat.” The basic solution provides a simple and effective alarm, monitoring and location capability, but it can be quickly and easily customized to meet specific customer requirements. For example, if a customer wants to be able to capture prevailing wind or storm conditions at the boat’s mooring, then this information can be sent directly to their phone. The remote management of on-board equipment also provides owners with an additional level of security, allowing owners to enable or disable devices or change the operating parameters from any location. In addition to delivering alerts via SMS text messages. CraftAlert also has a web interface allowing access to the system via the Internet. Boats can be easily checked in and out of Harbours, Marinas or Estuary locations giving constant awareness of where its home based vessels are at any given time. This also acts as a safeguard to protect against unauthorised movement of any alarmed vessel or attempted theft of vessels or on-board equipment. Marina management may also gain an early indication of difficulties such as pontoon power failure or boat alarms being triggered. Improved Safety The integrated GPS receiver provides an additional level of safety and security for boat owners, if for example they find themselves out at sea when the weather deteriorates. “This gives an added degree of safety for owners and additional peace of mind to family and friends,” “Although larger boats usually have GPS fitted, CraftAlert is there as a back-up and for smaller boats it’s a cost-effective way to add GPS functionality.” Island Communications believe that this improved level of safety for boat owners would likely be welcomed by maritime emergency services. CraftAlert is already attracting good interest from the UK boating community and International enquiries have come from Spain along with European based charter companies. Source: MXtra 2005. Island Communications launches Real-Time Monitoring and Alarm Solution for the boating community CraftAlert provides improved safety and security for boats and their owners Cannes, France, February 14th: Island Communications today announced the availability of CraftAlert, a cost-effective remote real-time monitoring and alarm solution, which will bring new levels of security and safety for the boating community. CraftAlert, which has been developed in conjunction with Justfone, provides boat owners and marina management immediate SMS text notification of alerts and changes of status aboard their boat and allows on-board devices to be managed. The flexibility of CraftAlert means that it can provide detailed information about the current status of a wide range of conditions on the entire boat rather than just simply provide alerts on forced entry provided by conventional alarm systems. The CraftAlert solution also has an integrated GPS receiver to give accurate location information on the current position of the boat.
“The cost of a single piece of equipment ranges from a few hundred to thousands of pounds and boats could be worth up to hundreds of thousands or more, but surprisingly insurance companies do not require owners to have alarms fitted to their boats”. The basic solution provides a simple and effective alarm, monitoring and location capability, but it can be quickly and easily customized to meet specific customer requirements The remote management of on-board equipment also provides owners with an additional level of security, allowing owners to enable or disable devices or change the operating parameters from any location. In addition to delivering alerts via SMS text messages CraftAlert also has a web interface allowing access to the system via the Internet. In a marina management and yacht charter environment, vessels can be easily checked in and out of Harbours, Marinas or Estuary locations giving constant awareness of where its home based vessels are at any given time. This also acts as a safeguard to protect against unauthorised movement of any alarmed vessel or attempted theft of vessels or on-board equipment. Marina management may also gain an early indication of difficulties such as pontoon power failure or boat alarms being triggered. The integrated GPS receiver can either provide back-up to an already fitted GPS or can be used as the main GPS tied in to suitable technology. The CraftAlert and its GPS system can also be used on emergency equipment such as alerting on inflatable life raft deployment. Source: MX News release Cannes France |
 | Island Communications receive an award in the Best Environmental Software Solution category at the prestigous Scottish Software Awards held at the SAS Radisson hotel in Glasgow on 28th November. Island were delighted to receive the recognition in the company of 300 fellow delegates representing the best of Scottish Software Innovation. The presentation of the award marks Island's development of a Water Level Monitoring and Early Warning System which is adopted by Councils from the Highlands to the Costwolds. |