Hospital Alerting via Electronic Noticeboard (HAVEN) (360G-Wellcome-103703_Z_14_Z)

Hospitalised patients may suffer deterioration in their medical condition, or develop a complication of their illness such as a chest infection or life-threatening blood clot. Hospital staff monitor patients for these problems using “vital signs” such as temperature and blood pressure. However, in spite of advances in the way the vital signs are recorded and assessed, in the UK each year 40,000 inpatients deteriorate sufficiently to require admission to an intensive care unit, 10,000 of which subsequently die.Modern hospitals now collect much information electronically, including patient descriptors (for example age and previous admissions), laboratory results, and vital signs. When clinicians assess patients they mentally weigh up each of these pieces of information to gauge how ill the patient is at the time, and their likely future course. Clinicians and clinical managers can only do this one patient at a time.A research group at the University of Oxford headed by Dr Peter Watkinson plans to produce a hospital-wide IT system that makes this risk assessment in all hospital patients continuously. The score will be made available via a display specifically designed to allow expert clinicians to identify and rank at-risk patients quickly and initiate treatment. The aim is to deliver a validated prototype system ready for commercialisation in partnership with industry.