LocANTS

Problem

LocANTS solves the negative impact of unnecessary patient transfers including mental and physiological impact in patients and family, frequent full capacity protocol triggering at specialist care centres, and inequality in healthcare delivery to remote and, often, low income regions.

A positive side effect of reducing patient transport is reducing the carbon footprint of the healthcare services. LocANTS has been used in acute neonatal care, showing high satisfaction scores with patients/families and clinical users.

Solution

LocANTS virtually parachutes a remote specialist from a tertiary care centre to the patient’s bedside at a district general hospital.

Using LocANTS, the local clinical team can work hand-in-hand with the remote specialists, and the remote specialist can remain involved in the treatment plan decision making in real time, as if s/he was physically present in the room. This way, required treatment can be planned and executed at the patient’s site without having to transfer the patient, in many cases.

The current alternative used is a point in time telephone call to the tertiary care to get advice and request transportation of the patient to a higher care centre.

Impact

A pilot run was conducted for acute neonatal patients over four months across three general hospitals – Ipswich, Colchester and Peterborough – and a specialist centre – ANTS/PaNDR at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge.

• 66% of patients ended up not needing to be transferred to another hospital
• 100% of patients’ families agreed or strongly agreed that the new system made their experience better, and they will recommend its use
• 100% of clinical users felt the system made it easier to make decisions and support the care of the patients