Patient care at Stepping Hill Hospital has become the first in the country to introduce a new IT system to help improve patient care, thanks to a partnership with a provider of innovative technology.

Stockport NHS Foundation Trust has joined forces with CDW, a leading IT company and provider of technology solutions, introducing an 18-month digital transformation programme to help provide staff with the equipment and expertise needed to improve patient care and performance.

The new technology is helping staff by providing more ‘agile working’, providing faster and easier access to clinical workspaces and systems.  They are also introducing a new blood tracking system which enhances traceability, and reduces the capacity for human error.

Stockport NHS Foundation Trust is the first acute hospital trust in the UK to implement the Kontakt.io Real-Time Location Services solution. Setting a precedent for innovation,  Stockport is paving the way for other NHS trusts to integrate new technologies that can vastly transform and enable improved patient outcomes.  

With around 6,300 staff, Stepping Hill serves over 300,000 patients each year. Like many hospitals, it had been heavily reliant on manual processes. The hospital had a clear need to modernise and introduce technology to enhance patient care and flow.

Holly Carr, Chief Clinical Information Officer and Clinical Safety Officer said: “We knew we needed to be smarter to maximise and optimise our existing resources. The new technology makes sharing devices and information more seamless and has enabled us to provide the infrastructure and digital capability to support a more agile working environment and mobile workforce across multiple care settings." 
 
The trust turned to CDW as its technology partner due to its longstanding experience and wealth of knowledge in the healthcare sector and because CDW provided consistent value and consultancy throughout the programme. The transformation will serve as a model for other NHS trusts seeking to implement technology to improve overall performance.  

Systems introduced include:

• Cisco Wireless Network Infrastructure and Digital Informatics – supporting ‘agile working’ across different locations, and ensuring seamless access to data across different clinical areas.
• io Real-Time Location Services – giving staff Real Time Location Services to help improve medical device management, identifying exactly where the are on site to help ensure greater efficiency and faster response times.   
• Imprivata Enterprise Access Management (formerly OneSign) – enabling quick and secure log-ins for clinicians wherever they are, reducing log-in time down from 3-4 minutes to just a few seconds, making for swifter and easier work.
• Zebra mobile devices to support a blood traceability system -
  providing end-to-end traceability of blood products with handheld digital scanners, improving efficiency and reducing the capacity for human errors. 

According to Phillipa Winter, Chief Technologist for Health and Social Care at CDW: “The forward-thinking vision that Stockport NHS Foundation Trust harboured for integrating technology sparked genuine excitement at CDW. It stands as a remarkable example of harnessing technology not to substitute human efforts but to elevate and amplify their impact on day-to-day tasks. This transformative approach not only empowers clinicians to extend their reach to more patients but also affords them the precious opportunity to invest additional, high-quality time in patient interactions, fostering a future where healthcare is not just efficient but deeply human-centred."