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Inditherm has been shortlisted for another award, this for suppliers delivering sustainability in the NHS. Judging will take place in December 2009, with stiff competition from some major healthcare companies. The award process considers partnerships with a number of UK hospitals, who have adopted Inditherm technology and contributed to confirming the efficacy of the technology and raising awareness more widely, both in the UK and overseas.
The basis of Inditherm Medical’s contribution centres on their systems for warming patients during surgery, which deliver sustainability from a number of different aspects. The most widely appreciated argument is the very significant cost saving, which combined with the excellent clinical performance allows universal delivery of intra-operative warming for all patients in an affordable and convenient way. This is helping hospitals to meet the UK’s NICE guidelines on perioperative hypothermia, where traditional patient warming systems are putting a significant extra burden on budgets.
What has not always been appreciated is the environmental advantage that can be gained. In their presentation to the judging panel Inditherm highlighted that with historic warming practice savings of 1,000 kWh per operating theatre would be realised each year by adopting Inditherm technology, with this more than doubled if the recommendations in the NICE guideline on perioperative hypothermia are followed. The analysis went on to show that clinical waste can be reduced by over 100kg per theatre annually.
In discussing the wider potential within the NHS, it was revealed that universal implementation could yield annual cost savings of well over £20 million, energy savings of over 10,000 MWh and clinical waste reduction of more than 400 tonnes. It was also noted that Inditherm is currently the only British manufacturer of patient warming systems.
High level environmental goals in the UK healthcare system are not always easy to translate into action when delivering routine patient care. Patient needs and budget constraints are typically of much higher importance in day-to-day decision-making. Inditherm technology allows all considerations to be realised by combining superior clinical performance with lower costs and significant environmental advantages.
Inditherm Chief Executive, Nick Bettles, remarked: “We have a growing number of UK hospitals using our technology and we appreciate the recommendations our partners in this award have given to other hospitals. One of the battles we have faced is that our proposition is sometimes perceived as too good to be true! The pressure on NHS budgets has helped to encourage more Trusts to consider the savings Inditherm can deliver and we find that once the clinical staff have tried the system they generally realise quite quickly how well it performs and how much more convenient it is than traditional air warming technology.”
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