NHS Video Conferencing and MDT Rooms

Easing the burden felt by healthcare professionals in testing times

Within the last 2 years the NHS has been put under an immense amount of pressure due to the pandemic. Its key workers, nurses and clinicians have quite rightly been lauded and applauded for their dedication to the people of Britain in the most testing of times. Internet Videocommunications is now in its fourth decade of partnering with the NHS, deploying conferencing and collaboration solutions that have significantly aided the day-to-day working of staff, saving money, improving efficiency and making a real difference to patients and medical practitioners alike.

Here we look at just a couple of real-world examples where Internet Videocommunications has been able to play its own part in assisting the NHS and its dedicated staff.

Cancer Care

Multi-disciplinary team meetings (MDTs) are at the very heart of managing chronic disease and grew out of the need to bring together specialised clinicians, to create a crucible for complex medical knowledge to be shared and to enable a more thorough case review. At the same time, the patient’s role in their own care would be promoted. And, it is in this environment that a higher quality and a more responsive level of decision-making can take place, subsequently leading to improved outcomes.

Historically, clinicians would have had to attend MDTs in person and simply arranging the logistics, the location, the date and the time, caused a massive drain on a Trust’s resources. But thanks to Internet Videocommunications’ cutting-edge MDT conferencing and collaboration systems, NHS staff have been able to join these meetings from wherever they need to be, from a device of their choice and at the touch of a button. Critically, the ability to access, show and review scans, high-resolution images and records is completely seamless, enabling the team members to formulate a clear plan and a research-based treatment tailored for each patient. Not only does this new way of working ensure that the best medical experts can be available to look after us, but it also means that, as it is now so much quicker and easier to set up MDT meetings, far more patients can be assessed in a shorter time-frame.

Teaching and Learning

The provision of education and training for doctors, nurses, midwives and other health professionals has never been more critical. Access to the right facilities and resources enables NHS staff, their departments and indeed the organisation as a whole to develop and embrace change as smoothly as possible. Each Trust has a responsibility to provide statutory and mandatory training and, fundamentally, the NHS must ensure that staff are fit to practice in order to provide safe, effective, high quality patient care. Typically, the Trust oversees training and development which is specific to each section of the workforce. In the case of doctors, for example, this will include overseeing the delivery of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, liaising with regional and national medical education bodies, sharing best practice through links with other healthcare organisations and career guidance.

Internet Videocommunications’ contribution to this area has been wide and varied over several decades. One of its earliest, most high-profile involvements was back in the 1990s when the company was commissioned by the Royal Colleges of Surgeons which, at the time, were pioneering the development and clinical implementation of minimal access surgery, more commonly known as keyhole surgery. A high-speed video network was created specifically to enable postgraduate students and other medical professionals, based at one hospital, to observe and to learn from live surgical procedures taking place at another (through the aid of custom-built videoconferencing links. Fast forward to the present and Internet Videocommunications is still at the forefront of audio-visual and videoconferencing innovation, designing and deploying state-of-the-art teaching and learning facilities at clinical centres of excellence both home and abroad.

Amongst its exemplar case-studies is the implementation of a 250-seat auditorium with links not only to multiple operating theatres equipped for high-fidelity surgery training, but also to an area with state-of-the-art simulators used to train clinicians on the ever-changing environment of the ICU.

The NHS is the fifth largest employer in the world and its staff, on any given day, are in contact with over 1.5 million patients and their families. Internet Videocommunications is delighted to play its own small part in supporting and helping this treasured institution.