2. Welcome introduction
• Sally Pezaro
• B.a Honours in media and communications
• Direct entry midwifery diploma
• Msc: leadership for health & social care
• Experience of midwifery practices both in the uk &
Africa.
• Interested in exploring the possibilities of the digital
future of maternity services.

3. Where are we now?
• The 2010 White Paper, „Liberating the NHS‟ and the 2012
Health and Social Care Act set out a contemporary
visualization to deliver an NHS that is pioneering,
accomplishes quality and results that are amid the best in the
world.
• These embody a vision of moving forward with technologies in
order to „work smarter‟. Ultimately, the government has set out
a “digital by default” vision for public services CQC (1),
2012:11).
• the Dilnot Report, the Boorman review, the Francis Report
and the tightening of financial belts have all provided
incentives for finding innovative ways of working and greater
engagement with client comment.

4. The future
• New families currently preparing for birth are a technologically
savvy generation: „Generation z‟, (born after 1995) (Sinclair. M,
2013)
• They are referred to as „digital natives‟ (Howe et al, 2000).
• Today‟s society in general is more demanding of instant
information access and patients are requesting online access
via patient portals (Moore, 2011).
• The NHS must prepare itself to support these families and staff
as necessary, and prime itself for tomorrows technological
maternity service needs.

5. Government Digital Service
• The Government Digital Service is a new team within Cabinet
Office tasked with transforming government digital services.

6. The modern mother
the pregnant woman is now documenting and sharing her
pregnancy online
• downloading pregnancy apps
• „tweeting‟,
• „face booking‟,
• „texting‟ recorded digital scan pictures
• and „skyping‟ the new born baby to a global audience
(Sinclair, M, 2013).

7. How can maternity services keep up?
• Virtual clinics/video
conferencing triage.

8. Digital notifications/mass patient
communication.
• Health promotion
• Appointment reminders
• Engagement with services

9. Social media
• health promotion
• support networking
• Engagement with services
• Recruitment and retention
• Antenatal education
• Service planning
• Research
• Client feedback
• Unified Trust performance rating site linked to:
– cnst ratings
– cqc ratings
– Patient feedback
– Obstetric outcomes
– Unit speciality
– Increasing patient choice
– Improving quality outcomes

10. Internet and social media usage in the
UK
• 85 per cent of people in the UK have used the internet (ONS, 2012)
• approximately half of all people in the UK have a Smartphone (a phone able to
connect to the internet) (http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/12/12/social-networking-
popular-across-globe/ )
• over 50 per cent of people in the UK use social media sites
(http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/12/12/social-networking-popular-across-globe/ )
• Only 34.2 per cent of people regularly read a newspaper (nrs, 2013)
• Twitter has 10 million active users in the UK (OFCOM, 2012)
• Facebook is the UK‟s most popular social media platform with two thirds of the UK‟s
40 million internet users having accessed it. (www.internetworldstats.com/stats )

11. Myths surrounding social media
• Its risky
• We don‟t do social media. It‟s not effective and our staff don‟t
have access to IT equipment
• I haven‟t got time to use social media and no one is interested
in what I‟m doing.
• Our IT department have blocked access to the internet for
personal use. They have concerns about security and
confidentiality
• We‟ve decided not to use it until we‟ve seen some good return
on investment (ROI) data
(Dean Royles - Chief executive, NHS Employers)

12. Briefing 91 June 2013 Social media for chief executives;
the essential guide (http://www.nhsemployers.org )
• Social media is here to stay.
• NHS chief executives need to be increasingly socially media literate.
• Social media platforms give the power to hear about and influence at
local, regional and national levels.
• Twitter offers easy-to-join networks of NHS professionals and
stakeholders, broadening perspectives.
• Future leaders can communicate ideas, express vision and engage
stakeholders fully through social media.

13. Everyone counts: Planning for Patients
2013/14
• These key points include social media.
• Increased transparency = being more open online.
• Patient participation and better customer service involve
going to where the patients are already talking –
Twitter, forums and blogs.
• Better data requires collection and open sharing of
anonymised data for comparison
• driving more choice = Twitter is an excellent way to
share, discuss and promote these data sets to the wider
public.

14. maternity apps

15. Health apps for service users
• Heart attack detectors
• Sleep monitors
• Pulse monitors
• Blood pressure watches
• Mental health assessments
• Vital signs cameras
• Bodily fluid sampling
• Mobile dopplers

16. Automated patient led clinics
• Frees up clinical time
• Allows for a more conversational relationship
• Puts women in charge of their own wellbeing
• Gives ownership of care to the client
Making responsibility a reality.

17. Health apps for health professionals – the
possibilities
• Areas of poor resource may use proforma practice
guidance apps for rural health workers
• Students may use proforma apps
• Nice guidance app
• Institutional apps
• Diary apps for note taking
• Mileage apps
• Workload sharing apps
• Time sheet upload apps
• Unified intranet based apps

18. Is it time we had a unifying pda system?
'midwives need hand held
devices to enter data at the
point of care to free up their
time'
(jane cummings Chief Nursing Officer
rcm annual conference 2012)

19. In the community?
• In car based devices currently used by
taxi‟s, road recovery services and police,
is there a place for this in maternity
services?
– Record mileage
– Staff safety
– Workload monitoring
– Satellite navigation
– Time management
– Data entry

20. VIDEO AND VOICE RECORDING devices
• OTHER EMERGENCY SERVICES ALREADY HAVE THESE IN USE.
• Protect the client and staff by improving safety and accuracy of events.
• Improved contemporaneous record keeping and time keeping in
emergency situations
• Opportunity for clients to debrief more though roughly and accurately
following critical events.
• Increased evidence in litigation cases.
• Learning through medical errors.
• Concerns, ethics and data protection.

21. Time for a centralized medical records
database?
• Digital, electronic health records are gradually being introduced world wide (Catwell et
al, 2009, Protti, 2007)
• NHS Care Records Service boosted by a £1bn technology fund (Sept, 2013).
• The new Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham has an online portal that allows patients to view
and update their own medical records so doctors can get real-time updates.
• CAN IT Reduce medical errors and promote appropriate care choices?
• WORRIES OVER Relaxation in privacy rights?
• Possible increased reluctance for disclosure?
• Can we barcode patient data or even microchip clients?
• Women concerned about interagency communications?
• in a Medix poll over half of all GPs said they would not upload their patients' data without consent
•
• The Big Opt Out campaign

22. To conclude…
“The question should not be why
do women not accept the
service that we offer?", but
"why do we not offer a service
that women will accept?"
(mahmoud Fathalla professor of obstetrics and gynaecology - egypt)

23. Any questions…?
Please mark your opinion on the poster!

24. References
• Bernasconi, M., Harris, S. & Moensted, M. (2006). High-tech Entrepreneurship: Managing Innovation, Variety and
Uncertainty, Routledge, London.
• CQC Quality care commission (1) (2012) The next phase: Our consultation on our strategy for 2013 to 2016: CQC The
Next Phase Newcastle upon Tyne.
• CQC Quality care commission (2) (2012) Our Market Report: Focus on maternity services; Market Report Issue 1: June
2012. Care Quality Commission; Newcastle upon Tyne.
• Catwell L, Sheikh A. (2009) Evaluating e-health interventions: the need for continuous systematic evaluation. PLoS Med;
6:e1000126.
• Department of Health (2010) Equity and excellence: liberating the NHS. London: HMSO, 2010
• Howe N, Strauss W. (2000) Millennials rising: the next great generation. Vintage Books/Random House: New York.
• Moore, S. (2011) Texts, tweets, and patient portals: Oncology nursing forum, 2011, Vol.38(4), pp.393
• Protti D. (2007) Comparison of information technology in general practice in 10 countries. Healthcare Q2007;10:107-15.
• Sinclair, M (2013) The „z generation‟: digital mothers and their infants; Evidence Based Midwifery: Volume 11, issue 1:
March 2013.
• ONS (2012) Internet Access Quarterly Update, Q3 2012.
• http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/12/12/social-networking-popular-across-globe/
• Net national dailies % figure NRS Readership Estimates – Newspapers and Supplements April 2012-March 2013
http://www.nrs.co.uk/top-line-readership/
• Ofcom (2012) Communications market report 2012, p264.
• www.internetworldstats.com/stats