Scotland Approves Site for First Digital Hospital

After a few years of planning and site scouting, Scotland has approved Wester Moffat as the future home of Scotland’s very first digital hospital. 

The new Monklands hospital is projected to open in 2028, and will feature state-of-the-art digital technology. According to Healthcare Global, the design is partly inspired by Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

Digital hospitals shift away from keeping paper records, instead using digital archives to store and access patient information. They also employ cutting-edge technology to connect care teams and minimize errors. 

Monklands Replacement Project clinical lead, Dr. Jim Ruddy, explained how the digital hospital will benefit both patients and providers alike. “A hospital built with digital technology at its core will free up clinicians’ time, allowing even more time to be spent looking after patients. With NHS Lanarkshire’s patients becoming older and increasingly suffering from a number of complex conditions, the use of digital technology is key to this clinical model.”

Over the years, the current Monklands hospital's technology has become old and outdated. And with Scotland’s growing elderly population, a newer, bigger facility with better technology is needed to accommodate it. Once the move to the new hospital has been made, says the health board’s director of property, planning, and performance, Colin Lauder, the current Monklands campus will be reimagined as a health and wellbeing village. 

The digital hospital is part of NHS Lanarkshire’s healthcare strategy, which is “to shift care away from inpatient treatment to at home and in the community; develop hospital centres of excellence in the region; and support the healthcare needs of the wider West of Scotland." 

The new hospital will be designed to fit with these goals. It will feature an operational command centre, providing real-time information that will immediately alert staff to the condition of deteriorating patients. State-of-the-art technology will be built in to connect medical staff working in different areas, provide interactive navigation for patients and visitors, and ultimately provide better patient care. Patient families will also have the ability to provide feedback, which the centre will monitor. According to University Hospital Monklands chief of nursing services Karen Goudie, these features will be designed “to maximise patient safety and flow, and to address any capacity issues in the safest way possible.”

Now that health secretary Jeane Freeman has approved NHS Lanarkshire’s choice of location, the new £400 million general hospital will go into the next stage of the project’s development. University Hospital Monklands’ chief of medical services, Dr Rory Mackenzie, commented on the development: “It is a crucial step forward on the road to a new Monklands that will be essential in supporting the ideal model of care for our future healthcare challenges, including the rising elderly population. We will use the latest technology to deliver Scotland’s first digital hospital and clinicians remain at the heart of the process, ensuring our new, ultra-modern hospital is designed to tackle public health issues such as the current coronavirus pandemic.”

Hospitals around the world are using cutting-edge technology to improve care for their patients. Check out how Latrobe Regional Hospital near Melbourne, Australia is using technology to reduce their door-to-needle times and improve both patient and provider safety for mental health cases.