Saolta Hospital Group partners with NUI Galway to roll out innovative Clinical Placement Digital Health Solution

A University Hospital Galway Medical Consultant has developed a “Clinical Pass” smartphone app to allow healthcare students across the region to undertake clinical placement. Prof Derek O’Keeffe Consultant Physician University Hospital Galway, working with colleagues in the College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences in NUI Galway and Renville Informatics has developed a smartphone based Clinical Pass App to facilitate clinical placement for health care students.

Commenting, Prof Derek O’Keeffe said, “Clinical placement training is a critical part of healthcare student education but reintroducing students into a clinical environment with COVID-19 is challenging and has to be done in a carefully controlled manner to ensure everyone remains safe.  This Clinical Pass App is a powerful example of how digital health initiatives can improve patient care by ensuring that the next generation of clinicians can safely get appropriate clinical experience”.

Prof Timothy O’Brien, Dean of College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences NUIG said  “At NUI Galway, approximately 1200 medical, nursing, speech and language therapy, social work and occupational therapy students undertake clinical training across the Saolta Group hospitals in the west and northwest.  These students are based across Galway University Hospitals, Portiuncula, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo and Letterkenny University Hospitals. Our students can now download the Clinical Pass app, complete a registration form and each day they will answer a series of COVID-19 related questions relating to their health and wellbeing at that time, which is based on the latest public health advice”.

“If students answer all questions satisfactorily, they are issued a digital green badge to allow them to partake in clinical activity that day.  If however they indicate that they are experiencing any COVID-19 related symptoms or have been in contact with a recently confirmed case of COVID-19 they are issued a red badge, given public health advice, not allowed to partake in clinical training and their clinical placement coordinator is notified. The app can also facilitate occupational contact tracing through student clinical site and speciality tracking” added Prof O’Keefe.

Tony Canavan, CEO of the Saolta Group stated, “COVID-19 is an unprecedented public health emergency. It has resulted in many restrictions that affect day to day life and our healthcare staff have been at the frontline in managing the pandemic. This app will help our hospitals facilitate clinical placements which are an essential part of education and training for all healthcare workers”.

Photo Caption
Saolta medical students and staff demonstrate the Clinical Pass App: Jack Kelly, Medical Student; Professor Timothy O’Brien, Dean of College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences NUI Galway; Sinead Corcoran, Medical Student and Professor Derek O’Keeffe, Consultant Physician at University Hospital Galway.