Ideagen’s quality management software to be rolled out across Falkland Islands’ health and social services

May 17, 18

King Edward VII Memorial Hospital will implement Ideagen’s Q-Pulse software for improved quality control, visibility and efficiency of safety and service levels

Ideagen is to work with the Falkland Islands’ Health and Social Services Department to help improve local services for residents and visiting tourists.

Based in Stanley – the Islands’ capital – King Edward VII Memorial Hospital is the only dedicated medical facility within the Falklands. The hospital will be rolling out Ideagen’s Q-Pulse software to centralise documentation and data management, while standardising operational processes.

Q-Pulse is used by hundreds of healthcare organisations globally and will provide staff working for the Health and Social Services Department with control, visibility and improved continuity when following practices based closely on healthcare standards, which are currently mandatory in the UK.

Hannes De Bruin, Service Delivery Manager at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital, said: “Whilst we are not legally required to follow any international standard or regulation, we have actively chosen to align our processes to meet the same compliance levels as any healthcare organisation in the UK. In doing so we can also improve the local and international reputation of our hospital and our healthcare services, as well as enhance the skills and knowledge of our excellent team.  

“Q-Pulse will play an integral part in ensuring we have all of the necessary health and social care standards and processes in place to support the successful development of a new extra care facility that we have planned for vulnerable people. The new software will provide a single repository for documentation and associated data, and will become a ‘go to’ place for staff to access up-to-date workflows, documents and standards. It will give us a complete view of our operational processes and any gaps that need to be rectified; it will also become our system for continuous improvement which will increase confidence in our services and skills across the board.”

King Edward VII Memorial Hospital was built in the 1940s and includes an isolation unit, intensive care and maternity facilities. The hospital also has a dental department and plans to develop MRI or CT scanning facilities to prevent patients requiring these diagnostics from being referred to mainland South America. There are also a host of GP surgeries that cater for any of the approximately 30,000 visitors to the Islands each year who may require medical attention. The hospital-wide Q-Pulse project was instigated after the success of the software within the organisation’s pathology labs.

Janette Vincent, Healthcare Governance Facilitator, said: “We were very impressed with how the software performed during an audit of our pathology lab processes. Q-Pulse made the whole activity  efficient and effective; all policies, incident reports, documents, etc. – everything was visible and accessible quickly and easily.

“One of the main goals of this project is to ensure overall control and continuity of our health and social care practices and processes. Our current system is quite stand alone, so aspects of it can be difficult to access from across services. Due to the nature of Island life, we have a large turnover of staff, and so when people leave we want new staff to be able to access and understand everything their predecessor did – that’s when we decided to look at a hospital-wide Q-Pulse system.”

Ideagen’s Q-Pulse software is the clinical workflow and information management solution of choice for hundreds of hospitals globally, including 75% of the NHS. The software helps to improve patient care outcomes and clinical efficiency.

Hannes added: "Q-Pulse is going to help us with our general, strategic and risk planning each year. Although we talk about health, that not only includes future healthcare services within the hospital but also the wider community. Q-Pulse will allow us to look at developing trends to identify where and when different health patterns and outcomes occur. We can then use this information to support greater innovation and positive change for our patients in the future."