Connecting the hospital using ‘Forward’, a smartphone application for clinical teams

A team of junior doctors aimed to create a smartphone messaging and workflow app, Forward, to improve the speed and security of communication between NHS clinical staff. Current options available to doctors include traditional systems (hospital landlines, radio-pagers) and unendorsed, non-compliant social messengers. To date, hospitals haven’t capitalised on the widespread use of personal smartphones among clinical staff. Research to prove the (i) problem / user case and (ii) effectiveness of the app (Forward) was undertaken over 1 year across multiple sites and using different research methods across three phases. A total of >200 clinical …