A video diary platform pioneered by Glasgow’s Royal Hospital for Children’s neonatal team to allow family members to see newly born babies during the pandemic has won a national award.

Hospital staff have been supported by the vCreate Video Service team to record video diaries of babies in the unit to keep members of a child’s wider family informed of their progress when they can’t visit themselves.

Meanwhile, the same team have set up a clinical video service to link patients and clinicians remotely.

The vCreate video service team won the Covid 19 Response Award at the Holyrood Connects digital health and care awards.

Dr Neil Patel, Consultant Neonatologist and Joint Clinical Innovation Lead at the West of Scotland Innovation Hub, says the video diary approach has now been taken up widely across critical care teams throughout the UK and overseas:

“We are delighted that the vCreate video services, and the teams that implemented them have been recognised through the covid-19 Response Award.

“So many colleagues across Scotland contributed to the success of these projects, which are making a real difference for patients and families despite all the current challenges.

“It has been terrific to see this innovation adopted so widely and we would certainly encourage others to take up similar approaches to help transform patient care across Scotland.”

The vCreate team was one of two NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde projects, supported by the West of Scotland Innovation Hub – that came into their own during the pandemic – to be recognised.

A new service for patients with COPD received the Technology Enabled Independent Living Award.

The digital platform, DYNAMIC, allows patients to manage the symptoms of their disease at home, reducing the number of trips to hospital, and to collect data for clinicians to analyse remotely.

Consultant Respiratory Physician Dr Chris Carlin says the project is about predicting flareups and episodes of poor lung health at the same time as providing more information to inform treatment decisions:

“We’re really pleased our care for COPD patients has been recognised.

“In the face of covid-19, our technology-driven project aims to predict ill health so we can be more proactive in our care.

“All of our patients are offered this in order to improve their care and manage their condition.”

The West of Scotland Innovation Hub works across health and social care across the West of Scotland to support initiatives that address key challenges to improve health, social care and service delivery.

Holyrood Connect’s annual Digital Health and Care awards recognise people improving the experience of patients and staff in Scotland through innovation in digital technology.

You can see a list of all the award winners at the Holyrood connect website.

 

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