Last week I took part in a
Leadership Safety Round at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Trust. I am a Non
Executive Director there and the Leadership Safety Round was part of a regular
series of events that allow Executive members of the Trust Board to meet with
front line staff and hear their ideas, concerns and achievements. Last
week’s visit was to the Medical Assessment Unit (MAU), a very busy unit that
takes patients directly from GP referrals as well as through the Accident and
Emergency Department. I have to say I was blown away with what I saw and what I was able to
discuss with the staff working there. Kim Whiteside (Ward Manager) played host
and what an inspiration she was! Clearly leading a highly motivated team from
the front, she appeared to literally have her finger on the pulse of what was a
unpredictable and turbulent clinical environment.
Never one to miss an opportunity, Kim made a
spontaneous Dragons Den pitch for some investment in the way the MAU stored,
dispensed and ensured safe medication administration. The MAU had both the
'traditional' medicine storage arrangements, and was also the site for the 'out
of hours medication' storage. The latter was a state of the art and highly innovative
piece of kit like the one shown here from Omnicell. It was finger print controlled, linked to the hospital
information system and main pharmacy and was extremely easy to use. It really
did ensure safe medicine practice was possible. The downside, well this innovative
piece of technological kit cost in the region of £20,000 to buy. But her case needs considering!
Innovation featured in other ways
in my week. 06.00 on Monday morning, the first day back for me after the Christmas
break, I found there was no internet connection in the School. There was no
milk in the fridge, so it was black coffee, and a chance to catch up on my reading
off-line. Ironically, the report I had to
hand was the 'Innovating Pedagogy 2015' report published by the Open University
and SRI International. I really enjoyed reading it and you too can also take a look
at it here. The report identifies 10 trends that are likely to
transform education over the next decade.
These trends include 'crossover learning',
learning that is enriched by experiences from everyday life; learning 'through
argumentation', learning that draws on promoting the understanding of contrasting
ideas and technical reasoning; 'incidental learning', the unplanned or
unintentional learning that can occur while carrying out an activity that is
seemingly unrelated to what is learned, often triggering self-reflection; interpreting
new information in the context of where and when it occurs and relating this to
what is already known can lead to 'context-based learning'; the use of 'computational
thinking' through deconstructing complex problems, pattern recognition, abstraction
and disregarding unimportant details and developing algorithms; 'learning through
experiment', but doing so by accessing and doing science at a distance; and ‘embodied
learning’ via wearable sensors, cameras and mobile devices; personalising access
to learning materials through computer based applications that promote ‘adaptive
learning’; with some of these approaches also being used for 'stealth
assessment' and 'student engagement'. It’s a report that makes fascinating and compelling reading,
Last Friday morning, I took
myself off to the 'Landing' at Media City UK as I was to take part in a workshop
aimed at exploring how a digitally connected Salford could improve the lives
of those living with dementia. Facilitated jointly by Salford City Council and HAELO, there were colleagues from the Police, Fire and Rescue
Services, Primary Care services, CVS, Salford Local Authority, Housing Associations
and of course the University’s Dementia Institute. There was much innovation to
be seen. From using big data to understand patterns of behaviour, prevalence of
health and social problems, through to using assisted technology to keep people safe from themselves, and to enable others to care for those most vulnerable.
The latter allowed families to keep a 'running commentary' going on what their loved
one was doing and helped the Police develop highly sophisticated search
approaches to be employed when someone goes missing. It was truly impressive
stuff. The workshop was the start of something very innovative and very exciting – 'Dementia United' –
watch this space for the official launch later in the Spring.
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