Changes are being put in place throughout healthcare to make working safer and more efficient for staff. Emergency equipment has been impacted with a new requirement to store multiple pieces of more advanced PPE.
To assist teams with this we are offering a free upgrade to all our existing customers so they can now include their PPE storage as part of their check. This feature also works with tamper evident bags so the seal number can be monitored on the bag like it is on medical trolleys.
Upgrading checks to include this allows for efficient supervision to help ensure a safe amount of PPE is stored within kits at all times.
If you would like upgrade your checklist or find out more about MyKitCheck please contact us.
As the risk level for coronavirus has now been reduced, we are now able to reflect on the past few months and assess where lessons have been learnt and great things have been achieved. One of the key trends the pandemic has highlighted is hospitals turning to technology to help them get through their most critical time. So here are just some of the ways the features on MyKitCheck have supported healthcare teams:
Keeping Track of Equipment
As wards opened, closed, and moved so did vital equipment. Hospitals raced against the clock to increase capacity to ensure they were ready for a surge in demand however this made pinpointing the exact location of kit difficult. MyKitCheck helped overcome this issue as it works using a blueprint of a hospital site which meant equipment locations were kept up to date and it was easy to monitor the likes of difficult airway and emergency equipment.
Minimised Touchpoints
With the additional safeguards, MyKitCheck provides it enables the number of regular checks to be reduced which in turn minimises contact with equipment. Reducing checks also frees up extra staff time each day which allowed for more time focused on patients. Resuscitation and management teams were able to lead from a dashboard using MyKitCheck which reduced or completely avoided the need for visits to wards in relation to kit.
User Friendly Equipment Checks
As existing staff were assigned to different departments or new/ temporary workers started this meant the person who carried out equipment checks may have changed. This task has the potential to be difficult and unnecessarily time consuming for someone not familiar with the layout and contents of a trolley. MyKitCheck eradicated this problem by having a visual checklist where staff were navigated through the trolley drawer by drawer. For each item, the platform shows a picture, its name, the quantity needed and any other extra instruction. This left no room for ambiguity and allowed staff to feel confident they have done a thorough and correct check.
Just these areas alone have helped healthcare teams across the country keep track and in control of their equipment throughout this exceptional time and has developed new ways of working that can be taken into the future. If you would like to find out more about MyKitCheck or arrange a demo please contact us here.
We appreciate that the NHS is working under considerable strain dealing with Coronavirus, the full consequences of which cannot be predicted at this time.
You will already have experienced the benefits of MyKitCheck but we would like to support you further by offering a free of charge upgrade on your current MyKitCheck plan to include your Trust’s difficult airway carriers to assist you in this challenging time.
This would enable your organisation to have quick access to view the readiness of your difficult airway equipment, removing the need for timely ‘full checks,’ whilst also allowing you to communicate any information affecting kit instantaneously to all areas via the platform.
Should you choose to upgrade we would like to assure you that we will be here to support you through every stage to ensure you benefit from it as soon as possible.
Recently two MyKitCheck users, Leeds Teaching Hospitals and Southport and Ormskirk Hospital have shared some of the fantastic results that they have achieved with the assistance of the platform. Both hospitals currently use MyKitCheck on their resuscitation equipment where checks are carried out daily, monthly and post-emergency.
Leeds Teaching Hospitals have gradually been phasing in MyKitCheck across their departments with a full rollout expected to be completed by Spring this year. Their Corporate Nursing account shared in January that the team on J91, a gastroenterology ward, received a certificate as they had achieved an incredible 8 months (and counting) of 100% compliance on their resuscitation equipment checks.
Heading across to Southport and Ormskirk Hospital, they started using MyKitCheck trust-wide in October 2019. Even though they are new to using the platform the changes they have seen have been immense already. The Trust looked to using MyKitCheck following a CQC inspection last summer that identified issues with the checks and equipment stored in their emergency kits. This made it evident that improvements needed to be made. Now only a few months in they are already seeing a huge benefit of taking their emergency equipment checks digital with three areas maintaining 100% compliance. Find out more about Southport and Ormskirk Hospital and MyKitCheck in their case study.
MyKitCheck enables managers to proactively monitor the readiness of their kit. The dashboard feature shows the status of checks made that day. This helps makes any arising problems clear so they can be dealt with immediately and keep compliance high. If you would like to see how MyKitCheck can transform your checks book a no-obligation demo.
Stay up to date with MyKitCheck and its users on our Twitter and LinkedIn pages.
Keeping track of equipment expiry dates can be hard in fast-paced environments like hospitals. This is made even more difficult when many of the items used every day have dates that need to be checked. However, making sure everything is in date is a crucial component to delivering good care.
In an emergency when every piece of equipment must be ready to use there is no time to double-check dates and nor should you have to. Here is where MyKitCheck can help. Two of its main features are the expiring equipment alerts and missing equipment alerts.
Expiring Equipment Alerts
Pieces of equipment stored in kits across a hospital could be used sporadically in some departments yet used every day in others. The expiring equipment alerts on MyKitCheck allows you to set the notice you need to be alerted for each item. So whether some of your supplies need one week’s notice of expiration and others need four weeks the system can send alerts in the most effective way for your team. This enables users to prioritise the use of individual pieces of kit or give plenty of time to rotate it with a department that is more likely to use it in the timeframe. If the item is still in circulation by its expiry date MyKitCheck will automatically change its status to missing as what is available is no longer suitable for use.
Missing Equipment Alerts
What could be worse than trying to deal with an emergency only to find the piece of equipment you need isn’t there? With missing equipment alerts key staff members can be assigned to be notified via email when a check has been made and an item has been identified as missing. This alert is also displayed when logged into the platform to ensure maximum visibility, so a corrective action is taken quickly. This avoids the risk and anxiety of not having the correct equipment readily available.
In the case of a shortage of a specific medicine or if anything has been discontinued staff can be warned of this using the digital noticeboard feature within the platform. The noticeboard has been created to communicate any important information and updates. This has been of great benefit to cross-site hospital Southport and Ormskirk NHS Trust. Carol White – Resuscitation Officer at the Trust says “if there is a problem getting an item for the trolleys or if a drug needs to be substituted, we can let everyone know and tell them what to replace it with” all within the platform which allows them to update the whole hospital instantly and avoids any communication issues.
Make out of date and missing equipment an issue of the past and increase patient safety with the bonus of avoiding wasting any resources with MyKitCheck.
We are excited to announce that Mark Holt has joined the MyKitCheck team as Clinical Solutions Specialist.
Mark has worked at Blackpool Victoria Hospital since 2009 and will be leaving his role of Clinical Resuscitation Officer to bring his medical expertise to assist with the continued growth of MyKitCheck.
Mark has been involved with MyKitCheck as a customer since he was tasked in 2017 to find a system or platform to reform the paper resuscitation trolley checks used by his Trust. Seeing the potential the platform offered he arranged for it to be trialled across five clinical areas at Blackpool Victoria Hospital for six months and in doing so this was the first Acute Trust to use MyKitCheck. Mark trained and supported the trial users and found all of them were fully engaged in using the new platform and appreciated the benefit it had to patient safety.
During this trial period, MyKitCheck worked closely with Mark and the trust to obtain vital feedback on any areas the platform could be developed so it could work seamlessly with the realities of a working NHS Trust.
Mark says:
Having worked as a Resuscitation Officer at the first Acute Trust where MyKitCheck was rolled out, I was amazed at how many problems of ours it solved. With a minimal implementation programme, our compliance rapidly increased to a daily > 95% for checks, missing and expired items within our resuscitation trollies. This has been maintained for in-excess of nine months which made me wonder where else it could improve performance within our Trust. Excited by the potential MyKitCheck offers for accountability, audit trail and governance with someone familiar with the day to day demands of the NHS, I decided to explore those potentials working with MyKitCheck to share my knowledge and experiences to better equip other Trusts with the same innovative opportunities.
Mark’s clinical implementation experience will be used to support customers throughout every stage of setting up and using MyKitCheck.
Jon Critchlow, Founder of MyKitCheck says:
I’m delighted to be welcoming Mark to the team at MyKitCheck. Mark’s dedication, willingness and passion were clear to see from the first time we met. I’m confident Mark will be a significant factor in helping us take MyKitCheck to the next level.
I look forward to introducing Mark to our growing customer base over the coming weeks and months.
We can all appreciate the importance of each item in a medical trolley. In the case of a resuscitation trolley having the correct items at the ready can be the difference between life or death. This is why some members of staff understandably feel under pressure when carrying out the checks in case any errors are made, or items missed.
If you’re looking for a way to empower your team to feel confident carrying out equipment checks, MyKitCheck could be the answer you’ve been looking for. This platform takes an individual through a trolley check in a clear and easy to use way that minimises the risk of human error.
The user is taken through a check matching items in the trolley to images of each item on the screen. This can speed up checks and increase familiarity with items. Messages can be inputted at any stage during the check which is ideal if multiple people check the same kit. Expiry dates and batch numbers can easily be confirmed or amended, and orders for any missing items can be sent immediately. Alerts for soon to be expired items allow for plenty of time for reordering and notification of this can also be sent to an email address.
MyKitCheck equips staff with a powerful tool that will make them feel supported throughout the process. Those who have used the platform have only benefited from the effects of this by seeing their equipment check compliance soar.
The results of checks are tamper evident as they cannot be edited once completed. This gives you an accurate outlook of your hospital’s compliance on checks.
See how your kit checks can be transformed by taking them digital with MyKitCheck – book your demo today.
The NHS is reviewing ways it can become paperless with a target to reach a core level of digitisation by 2024. Those that have adopted new practices of taking what was once paper based tasks digital welcome the time and space saving results, as well as the added level of analytics it can bring. The digital revolution within the NHS is now well underway meaning it can begin to move forward from the storage of thousands of miles of paper records.
This transformation doesn’t stop at trolley, bag and kit checks either with MyKitCheck you can achieve all of the above. Created from the need to have more accurate records of equipment checks as well as the awareness of how time demanding it can be to input the results the platform was born.
There is a multitude of benefits for taking paper-based tasks digital especially in the healthcare industry where compliance is pivotal. Users of MyKitCheck have found that by having access to a real-time analytics dashboard of their checks that compliance has soared.
The compliance dashboard monitors four key areas:
Overdue checks compliance
Missing items compliance
Expired items compliance
Overall compliance
This has allowed users to assess and deal with any problems such as missed checks before they become an issue. This unrivalled level of real-time data can be seen remotely from any internet enabled device. All you have to do is simply log in to the website.
Digital innovations are changing compliance and the access we have to monitoring it. User of MyKitCheck Stephen Clift, Senior Resuscitation Officer from Blackpool Teaching Hospital says “With MyKitCheck I can immediately see live data of the emergency readiness of all the Trust’s resuscitation equipment. Patient safety is our number one priority, MyKitCheck allows us to provide a gold standard level of readiness and provide accurate audit data instantaneously to evidence this.”
Book your demo of MyKitCheck today and see how taking your equipment checks digital can help boost your compliance.
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