86005Call-4-Help — Development of the Call-4-Help mobile app which ensures hospital staff can find the resources they need quickly, easily and securelyClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKCall-4-Help is a secure mobile app for efficient communication and structured task management within hospitals. The product enables nurses, doctors and supporting staff to provide and coordinate care for their patients round-the-clock. The app is needed in the context of the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, with hospitals facing an unprecedented backlog of procedures, operations and other healthcare needs. Hospitals require a step change in efficiency and models of care delivery. Call-4-Help has been developed to boost clinical productivity, improve patient outcomes, avoid preventable harms and reduce costs, enabling more patients to be cared for by the NHS over time with the same money. The product will be unique amongst clinical communications platforms, being initially deployed in response to the sudden increase in workload during the COVID-19 surge at an NHS pilot Intensive Care Unit. During this period, the prototype app helped with specific challenges such as staff skill-base, care coordination across COVID-19 segregated areas and the need to communicate while wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). Going forward, hospital staff will encounter similar and distinct challenges in providing safe and efficient care for patients who may have been waiting many months for treatment. As hospitals adjust to the 'new normal' while resuming the breadth of clinical services, including for vulnerable people in the context of ongoing infection risks, this project will obtain clinical and operational feedback to refine the tool for these needs, while preparing for integration with new hospitals' workflows. The transformational innovation of Call-4-Help is that group chats or paper lists are replaced by a system of structured task queues designed for hospital or speciality environments, with a simple unified interface usable while wearing PPE such as gloves, respirator and visor. It also helps to stop waste of PPE by reducing the number of transitions staff make in and out of protected areas. Care or ancillary tasks are actioned in a cooperative way. Staff enter new requests using the mobile interface, and are notified of relevant task requests entered by others, allowing individuals to see all the tasks in their groups. Tasks are claimed or assigned to relevant staff who then securely exchange information privately via text, videos, photos and audio. The responder completes the request or unclaims it if they can no longer support it, sending it back to the collaborative pool. The app will replace outdated and insecure practices of paper-based task lists, paging or 'bleeping' and inappropriate use of social messaging platforms containing patient-identifiable data. The product will be compliant to NHS information governance frameworks, interface with existing IT systems and provide an evidence trail of communication. For ward and hospital managers, the product will provide dashboard tools to enable analysis of workflow bottlenecks and frequently recurring issues. Collaborative development of the app aligned to the needs of its customers will result in demonstrable, measurable improvement in care coordination, securing the product's place in an expanding UK market and current NHS procurement initiatives, with future attention directed towards international healthcare contexts facing similar challenges.