Sheffield Children’s Hospital is a world-leading paediatric hospital with an international reputation for its work. TCHC exists to raise funds to provide the hospital and its patients with services and equipment over and above what it can expect from the NHS.

TCHC raised a substantial sum of money and purchased a Patient Interactive System (PIS) for the hospital. The PIS is a system of bedside units that give patients access to a limited service of TV, games and telephony during their stay in hospital. Despite huge benefits there were a number of issues involving hardware, software and planning for new features and upgrades.

TCHC appointed Redemption Media to assess and review the PIS and recommend a way forward.

We undertook an extensive investigation into the history and current state of the PIS and its units, including meeting IT staff, ward staff, medical staff and the TCHC Managing Director. We listened to the concerns of those involved and recorded their experiences of trying to use and maintain the systems.

We produced a thorough report for TCHC outlining current problems and how they could be addressed. We made clear who should be responsible for each aspect of the care and maintenance of the system and sketched out some proposals for significant cost-savings. We looked at how the hardware and engineering of current units could be improved at minimal cost.

We proposed a number of ideas for future upgrading of the software to allow:

• Access to on-demand TV applications such as BBC iPlayer

• Use of Skype from within the PIS as a more reliable, cheaper and more practicable alternative to the current telephony system

• Patients to order their meals through the PIS, replacing the current cumbersome paper-based system

• Users to play a restricted number of children’s interactive games, providing welcome distraction during their stay in hospital

• Staff to log-in to the units via a secure system and access the patients records, enabling much greater access to information and improving care.

To produce this report, we used our extensive experience and knowledge of software systems, interactive applications, engineering and hardware, project management, device maintenance and our understanding of how different parties work together under contract. If you want to explore how we could help you to review your current systems and look at high-tech, low-cost options for additional functionality, please get in touch.