Hospedia

Hospedia Ltd Plc

Industry	Hospital equipment
Area served	United Kingdom
Key people	James Steventon , CEO
Products	Hospital bedside televisions, Clinical Workflow Solutions
Brands	Patient Flow
Services	Hospital patient media delivery. Clinical Flow Solutions.
Website	www.hospedia.co.uk

Hospedia Ltd is a provider of bedside communication and entertainment units in UK hospitals.Also a provider of clinical work flow solutions.

History

Hospedia Ltd is a Private Limited Company with Share Capital. Hospedia acquired Patientline (incorporated July 30, 1993) during July 2008 after the company entered administration.^[1] Hospedia then looked to acquire Patientline's main competitor, Premier Telesolutions, which would have given Hospedia responsibility for over 80,000 bedside television units.

The proposed acquisition was referred to the Office of Fair Trading in 2008.^[2][3] On 30 October 2009, the Competition Commission announced that it had cancelled its inquiry into the acquisition.^[4]

In August 2010 Hospedia Ltd was acquired from Hospedia Holdings LTD by Marlin Equity Partners,^[5][6] Tim Weil, Hospedia’s CEO, claimed:

Marlin’s significant capital base and shared vision for upgrading our installed base of over 65,000 terminals with our latest generation technology will enable Hospedia to provide a better service to patients and simultaneously provide hospitals with a means to significantly improve efficiency and reduce costs.

Where available Patient Engagement services range from patient feedback and educational materials to electronic meal ordering. Hospedia's website claims "Clinical Workflows benefit clinical staff and hospital management".^[7] "Patient Flow Management supports clinical best practice; monitoring patient flow and bed availability in real time and helping to reduce length of stay".^[8] and "Clinical Access puts clinical IT at the heart of the patient environment, promoting paperless initiatives and reducing workload."^[9]

Hospedia acquired 65,000 bed locations from the former Patientline, which secured the company a position to project itself as the only choice provider for all future Healthcare IT services.^[10] This position is unlikely to be rivalled as the installation costs of the original programme were never recovered, making a nationwide installation programme by any other company unrealistic. The Monopolies and Mergers Commission recognised the danger of the company having a majority stake of these locations and blocked the merger with Premier Telesolutions in 2008, however Hospedia came to manage some of these sites including Northampton General Hospital.^[11]

The Tele-call system pioneered by The Wandsworth group was installed at Northampton General Hospital, Wandsworth subcontracted the running of its bedside services to Premier Telesolutions in 2003.

The company embarked on a public relations drive which would include free outbound telephone calls, better pricing structures and additional television channels. The company significantly reduced its workforce within a 12-month period from December 2010 to December 2011, most of the redundancies were from hospital locations as the roles of the Customer Service Assistants, Site Managers and Engineers were cut down to one or no staff members, usually covering a few hours a day. The company also reduced its call centre operations based in Dumfries.

Services

This service currently includes standard Freeview channels, on-demand films and TV, games, the Internet and radio.^[21] Media is delivered to patients via Hospedia's bedside terminals.^[22] A variety of entertainment packages are available depending on a patient’s length of stay and whether they wish to have access to films on demand, games, and/or internet. Registering on the bedside system allows patients to make free unlimited outgoing calls to 01, 02, 03 and 07 numbers,^[23] this is partly balanced by the cost of making incoming calls to the patient's unique Hospedia telephone number.

Hospedia recognized the need for change and began its move from being solely a bedside entertainment provider for patients with a view to become a more integral part of the NHS by providing clinical services. This however has still to be proved as a successful way of conducting surveys as pilot schemes until now how proved slightly unbalanced as only a certain category of patients are able to use the bedside terminal. In the past, the Picker Institute has expressed reservations with regard to the use of bedside terminals.^[24] However, in 2012 the institute partnered with Hospedia to offer extensive real time patient surveys through their Frequent Feedback service.^[25]

Public opinion

Public opinion has been critical of both Patientline and Hospedia, as many^[26][27] feel that charging the sick and vulnerable to access television in hospital is unacceptable. In 2012 The Sunday Mirror covered increase of charges, with reporter Nick Owens stating that the cost of hospital television was £9 per day, a higher figure than that paid by prison inmates.^[28]

Call charges remain at the mobile rate of 49p for incoming calls to the units, however outbound calls to landlines have now been included in the price when television is purchased. In 2010 the company featured on the BBC's consumer affairs programme Watchdog^[29] which portrayed the company in "favourable" light, neither negative or positive.

A major criticism is that cards purchased from Hospedia card machines are non-refundable; the company state that if the patient pays by credit or debit card, any unused credit is refunded. However, getting such a refund has proven to be time-consuming in practice, requiring the ward, bay and bed numbers to be known.^[30] In February 2010, the then head of the Patients Association Michael Summers described the process as "a tax on the ill", saying that "They are a captive audience and many patients simply can’t afford these prices".^[31]

In 2009 there were also complaints about a lack of “on site” support for operational problems with bedside units, and this was especially the case out of regular working hours when Hospedia relied on its 24-hour premium-rate helpline to resolve issues. It was recognised that this approach did not always meet patients' needs.^[32]

The decrease in face-to-face and telephone customer service has led to even more frustration, as when patients or visitors call the helpline from the unit, the operators are not now able to offer full customer service or replace any lost time due to faults, and these enquiries are now passed to a new department in the company's head office in Slough.

When the Government introduced PPI in 2000, they were committed to providing every patient in the NHS with bedside television and telephone services. The providers of these services, Patientline, Hospicom (now HTS) and The Wandsworth Group were to recover their costs by charging patients and also hospitals using them for medical services. The demand, however, was lower than anticipated.

The Patient Power review group has expressed its concerns about the increasing costs of the bedside services and has become the most vocal of groups^[33] challenging the use of these terminals at a cost to patients. The group has launched a number of protests against the charges and Hospedia issued a statement^[34] in February 2011 to explain that they supported a reduction in both the cost of telephone calls and the use of non-geographic numbers, which had been assigned back in 2000, and were hopeful that these measures would assist in lowering the cost of such calls.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley MP featured on a video on the system which came under criticism.^[35][36]

Hospedia has reported that its users have a 78% satisfaction rate.

Hospital radio

While the television services are charged for, Hospedia has continued to provide hospital radio for free, enabling the hospital to reach patients via their stations on the bedside units. The hospital stations are to be found on channel 1 on the system which also includes the facility to contact the station via the telephone on the unit. Listening through traditional means required hospitals to maintain a radio system beside each bed, but in many locations Hospedia is now the only way to access hospital radio.

Payment technology

Hospedia had predicted that the majority of people staying in hospital would pay for services using mobile phones, credit cards and other "smart" technology. This has led to a rethink of the removal of all card dispensers in hospitals. In 2012 Hospedia acquired the hospital workflow management specialists Extramed.^[37][38]

Future plans including online prescription information and a move into online healthcare information are being looked at, as the company tries to detach itself from just being a television service provider.

IT systems

Marlin Equity Partners who are also behind enterprise resource planning business Solarsoft acquired Hospedia LTD in 2010.

The following hospitals have upgraded to the new T3 System: Addenbrookes Hospital, Epsom General Hospital, Royal Oldham Hospital, Whiston Hospital, Eastbourne Hospital, Chesterfield Royal Hospital, Broomfield Hospital, Carlisle Infirmary, Salford Royal Hospital, Castle Hill Hospital, Salisbury Hospital, Bournemouth General, Wythenshawe Hospital, Good Hope Hospital, St Helier Hospital, North Manchester Hospital Manchester Royal Infirmary.

Mid Essex Hospital, Cambridge University Hospitals, Southampton University Hospitals and Heart of England NHS foundation trusts have started using the Clinical Access Services provided by Hospedia.^[39]

References