The Challenge
How could we make it easier for the London Ambulance Service (LAS) to more effectively respond and understand the current medical issues and any underlying issues that could affect on-the-spot treatment on arriving at an emergency?
In close partnership with NHS OneLondon, we helped the London Ambulance Service leverage the power of the Health & Social Care Network to access critical patient information securely and efficiently through a bespoke iPad application. We needed to enable paramedics and medical professionals to have instant access to vital data, facilitating informed decision-making and improved patient care.
"The Discovery Workshop happened with no drama, no fuss – it was just expertly done."
David, London Ambulance Service Paramedic
Designing New Tools with Medical Professionals and Patients
The ‘London Care Record (LCR)’ App, developed in close collaboration with our innovation design team and guided by the expertise of the London Ambulance Service crew during a 5-day design sprint workshop, is cutting-edge software designed to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of emergency medical services. The application is specifically developed for native iPad iOS, ensuring seamless usability and an intuitive user experience for use in the clinical field.
From planning to discovery to a live product now used by over 800 clinicians and supporting over 4000 paramedics and clinicians across London, we have designed and developed a digital service — steered by clinicians and ambulance crew paramedics; and today continue to maintain the development of this essential iOS application and service design.
Our application design follows the recommended NHS digital service manual guideline.
Continuously improving this essential service
And we’re still listening and learning from the users of London Care Record (LCR) in these early releases of LCR across London:
“I used the LCR viewer today for the first time. I have to say, it was excellent. Really easy to navigate and a hospital discharge note as recent as 4th August and x-ray results as recent as 2 days ago all there to read. Was actually very useful to formulate the best plan of action for a patient. It’s a yes from me!” – NHS Trust Medical Professional
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“Overall, I’ve found LCR to be incredibly useful, and now essential. It enabled me to make some sound non-conveyance decisions, and allowed some rather in-depth onwards referrals, with the accepting service being much more comfortable to accept the patient. It’s also allowed me to make some more informed conveyance decisions. For example a patient with chest pain was refusing conveyance, but with LCR I was able to see they’d had elevated Troponin last time they had the chest pain – providing the patient and family with this enabled them an informed decision to attend ED (Emergency Department).” – NHS Trust Medical Professional
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“It was a challenging project, and it's hard to believe how far we've come since that first design thinking workshop with the paramedics. Still remembers the disbelief that the paper prototype they had put together would end up in the product. "That patient timeline we have on those bits of card and paper will be in the app?, yer right? So “this is like being back at play school”, as one paramedic put it, shows the power of design thinking combined with agile delivery. It's about starting with empathy, framing the problem, and constant feedback and learning - and not rushing to a solution. And a big dollop of co-design and divergent thinking.” - NHS Innovation Consultant, Dave Norton recalls how for him the LCR App creation was a design thinking and agile success story (LinkedIn article)