The CEO of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital (NMCH), Dr Mandisa Maholwana, says the hospital places the highest priority on infection prevention and appropriate antibiotic use and has therefore implemented Bluebird, an innovative tool designed to manage these health concerns. “Bluebird is a proven organisational tool that facilitates a multi-disciplinary approach to patient care and helps our clinicians prioritise high risk patients and improve patient safety. Importantly, the tool has been shown to integrate well with our SAP hospital information system,” says Maholwana.

The Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital, a legacy project of Nelson Mandela, is only the second dedicated paediatric hospital in Southern Africa. By providing specialist care to children with complex illnesses NMCH has become an important part of Madiba’s dream to provide universal healthcare for children in Southern Africa.

Since opening in June last year, this 200-bed referral facility has phased in centres of excellence including Neonatal and Paediatric Intensive Care Units (the largest in the country), Cardiology, Cardiothoracic surgery, Neurosurgery, Orthopaedic surgery, General Paediatric surgery as well as Renal and Radiological services.

Bluebird, a mature, cloud-based, infection control and antimicrobial stewardship solution was built from the ground up using CDC (Centre for Disease Control) antimicrobial stewardship guidelines and was chosen after diligently assessing competing products. Bluebird’s success is explained, in part, by the ability to focus scarce clinical resources on high-risk patients where special clinical expertise is most needed and will do the most good. Clinician workflow is standardised and efficiency increased allowing hospitals to accomplish more with fewer resources.

Intelligent Medical Systems, the company behind Bluebird has a two-decade track record of providing professional support to the medical profession. Bluebird’s intuitive interface and comprehensive training programs facilitate painless onboarding. Comprehensive, patient information is available on an iPad used at the patient’s bedside and clinicians, including doctors, have remote access. Because Bluebird is cloud-based, minimal hospital IT resources are required.

Dr Maholwana concluded, “We are excited to objectively measure how this innovative technology will positively impact patient care.”

Additional benefits of using Bluebird include:

• Standardised measurement of infection rates throughout the hospital
• Automated annual antibiograms guide empiric antibiotic therapy
• Reduced infection rates through early detection and breaking the chain of transmission
• Reduced and more appropriate antibiotic use
• Reduced costs of patient care by reducing healthcare associated infections, decreasing the length of hospital stay and decreasing inappropriate antibiotic prescribing
• Improved multi-disciplinary teamwork.

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