Who says owls only come out at night? Well, the one at Wellington Medical Centre is certainly not nocturnal and is proving to be a real game changer for patients and staff.
Dr Joe Collings, one of the GPs at the practice, approached the League of Friends asking if it would fund the purchase of a Meeting Owl (inset), at a cost of £1,999.
League press officer Diane Grabham takes up the story …
Most of us had never heard of this device, but apparently it is an all-in-one, 360-degree video conferencing device which uses artificial intelligence to automatically zoom in on whoever is speaking – think of Zoom or Teams but with extra whistles and bells.
Convinced that this was going to benefit patients, we agreed to the funding and we are so glad we did.
It’s been in use for a while so we contacted the Medical Centre to see how they were getting on with it.
Dr Collings told us: “The meeting owl has been a game changer – it has been very useful indeed across the board but it has really shone with multi-disciplinary teams, and has even been used in clinical teaching too.
“It is used multiple times across the week so there are lots of examples I can think of, but one recent example comes to mind in particular, relating to a multi-disciplinary team meeting for a younger vulnerable patient (and their family).
“It was possible to bring together the child’s GP, the parent’s GP, the health visitor, the family’s social worker and a paediatrician working remotely in the hospital to discuss the complexities of this individual’s care and come up with a cohesive plan.
“This kind of meeting has been previously attempted online but has often not been very successful due to sound and video quality – however in this case it was perfect and really highlighted to me what a difference the meeting owl has made!
We had a very successful meeting and came up with a good plan to safeguard some of the concerns around the child and plan their ongoing medical care.
“Another example on a different thread was a recent significant event analysis where it allowed us to connect to our entire team at the medical centre and wider primary care network for an important piece of learning surrounding an adverse event (in order to prevent a recurrence and learn from something that went wrong).
“This would not previously have been possible, or at least would have been very ineffective over Teams due to the large number of people present.
“We are really grateful to Wellington Hospital League of Friends for this – it has been a real help”
It’s really good to hear the funds you, our supporters, help us raise is being put to something which is having such positive results. Thank you for your continued support.
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It sounds a good idea.