New pilot introduced in facility which will become Scotland's first digital hospital

Sandhya Suresh
Wed, 8 May 2024 

Clinical support worker Kate Stevenson (left) and staff nurse Meghan Ferrie (Image: NHS Lanarkshire)


In an NHS Scotland first, a hospital in Airdrie has been trialling a hi-tech system to assess patients' health in the emergency department.

The Patientrack digital patient observations system in University Hospital Monklands (UHM) is part of the digital planning for Lanarkshire’s new state-of-the-art hospital.

The system is spearheaded by the Monklands Replacement Project (MRP), an NHS Lanarkshire’s vision for the replacement UHM which will be Scotland’s first digital hospital when it opens in 2031 at Wester Moffat in Airdrie.


Dr Gordon McNeish, emergency medicine consultant at UHM, said Patientrack has been a huge boost in the emergency department, improving patient safety and streamlining staff’s work.

Glasgow Times: Back - Emergency medicine consultant Dr Gautham Balachandran and staff nurse Meghan Ferrie; front -

The NHS Lanarkshire associate medical director for unscheduled care said: "The new system moves away from using paper charts to record key clinical observations such as blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen levels, and temperature.

“Instead, clinical staff enter these onto iPads as patients arrive in the emergency department and are assessed in cubicles.

“The benefit of the system in an emergency department is that it automatically calculates a ‘National Early Warning Score’ (NEWS).

"The score helps us work out how quickly a patient should be seen and how frequently their observations should be repeated."

He said the new approach removes the need to manually search through papers to determine which patients are most ill.

A touchscreen monitor in the main clinical area presents real-time observations, outstanding tasks, and National Early Warning Score’ (NEWS) scores for all patients.

Dr Gautham Balachandran, emergency medicine consultant, said: "We’re all in agreement that Patientrack has improved awareness of who the sickest patients are – we can see it on the big screen or on our PCs.

"It makes the emergency department safer for patients and is more efficient for staff working to assess and treat patients as quickly as possible.”

Kate Stevenson, a clinical support worker, said: "The new technology took a bit of getting used to but we’re comfortable with it now and it’s impressive to see how much it helps clinicians to monitor how unwell patients are."

Donna McHenry, MRP redesign lead who is co-ordinating the use of Patientrack at the hospital, said: “The goal is for the new Monklands to be Scotland’s first digital hospital, using systems that allow the most agile technological assistance for patients, staff and visitors.

“That’s why the current Monklands site is leading the way in taking forward digital advances, such as Patientrack, which was previously introduced on wards and is now successfully working in the emergency department.”