e cases of the infection reduced.
But in 2002 UCLH borrowed a mobile screening van from the Netherlands, which – despite its small population – continued to invest in these services at a time when the UK offered no mobile screening at all. “We borrowed a van and found three cases of TB in three days. It was clear there was a lot of undiagnosed TB out there,” said Story.
In 2005 the UCLH got its own van and has since screened 135,000 people, finding 500 cases of the disease.
But the project that uses mobile devices, networking, storage and security IT to complement medical technology is now going beyond TB.
The software used, known as iTrics, was developed by Spargonet and UCHL. It is a modular system with a registration at the front end and then a workflow.
Mobile devices, which are connected to the van, are used by medical staff to screen people and the results send for secure storage in a cloud provided by cloud hosting service provider 4D. The van is Wi-Fi enabled to ensure that it can connect at different locations but also doubles up as a 4G receiver to guarantee connectivity. The devices become useless when they move a certain distance from the vans for security reasons.
Story describes how the service has evolved from being about finding cases of TB to ensuring that patients are taken through treatment. “When we first started in 2005 we just had a van and over 50% of cases were lost. We needed to find and treat.”
The system was designed to be modular and therefore flexible enough to use for other conditions and the project will be repeated in other parts of the UK.
According to Story, the project could contribute to a new approach to healthcare in the UK. “The future of healthcare is moving away from building massive hospitals and waiting for people to come to them,” he said.
Read more about IT in healthcare
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- CIO Joel Vengco discusses how healthcare big data can improve patient care and create more vulnerabilities. In the end, he thinks it's worth it
- This study by HIMSS Analytics highlights, for the first time, a correlation between the maturity of IT within NHS hospitals and improvements to patient outcomes