Pulse+IT: St George Hospital uses myBeepr for hot COVID ward response

Written by Kate McDonald on 18 November 2021.

Sydney’s St George Hospital has used the myBeepr clinical collaboration platform rolled out earlier this year to help it with role-based messaging and the hospital’s ward-based response to COVID-19.

At St George, patients suspected or diagnosed with COVID-19 flow through a streamlined process and are assigned to a COVID-19 care team and transferred to a dedicated COVID-19 ward directly from the emergency department.

All clinical teams involved in the response, including the ED, ward-based teams, ICU and anaesthetics, communicate and coordinate care on myBeepr.

myBeepr CEO Vikram Balakrishnan said hospitals were asking for unique pandemic specific functionality that would allow them to adapt to a changing care model.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many hospitals, especially in the eastern states, to move to a ward-based care model,” Dr Balakrishnan said. “This newer model relies heavily on care team communication, and we found that our hospital partners and users needed specific COVID-19 roles and groups to assist with this.”

The COVID-19 outbreak in Sydney and influx of COVID-19 positive patients prompted St George Hospital to use myBeepr to help manage COVID-19 patients across the hospital and assist with communications between clinicians.

Over the first four weeks of the implementation of the new model of care, 381 clinical staff have used the system through 33 COVID-19-related chat groups in myBeepr.

Krupa Bhagani, co-founder of myBeepr and the program lead at St George Hospital, said COVID-19 teams were supported through role-based messaging and setting up unique COVID-19 roles such as ‘COVID ward doctor’, ‘COVID nurse unit manager’ and ‘intubation consultant on call’.

St George also purchased smartphones for COVID-19 roles to be used in and out of COVID-19 ‘hot’ areas of the hospital.

Director of medical services at St George, Heidi Boss, said myBeepr is being used by clinical staff to send patient updates, coordinate multidisciplinary care and manage resources.

Read the original Pulse+IT article here: https://www.pulseitmagazine.com.au/news/australian-ehealth/6358-st-george-hospital-uses-mybeepr-for-hot-covid-ward-response