Department of Clinical Neurophysiology

Institute of Neurological Sciences, Glasgow

Departmental Description

The department provides the Regional Clinical Neurophysiology service to the West of Scotland Health Boards. The EMG/EP service is entirely centralised, whereas the EEG service has two satellite departments in the Glasgow Western and Royal Infirmaries. The central department provides all medical reporting for these departments. This is provided to Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Western Infirmary, Crosshouse Hospital via computer links. We provide some managerial, educational and supportive roles for the technical staff who hold their contracts with the North Glasgow University Hospitals Trust.  We have a growing relationship with Quarriers Home in Bridge of Weir for EEG and epilepsy diagnosis.

Physical arrangementWe are located in the Roundhouse on the ground floor of the Institute. The patients are welcomed at a reception desk manned throughout the day by one of our secretaries.

      We have a total of 9 multipurpose patient investigation rooms, each with a separate changing room with toilet and shower of which 2 are partly equipped for sleep recordings, two other are exclusively for EEG and the rest are multipurpose for EMG/EP or EEG.

Waiting Room

Patients wait here for all our investigations. We provide a restful and comfortable environment with chairs grouped around tables. Background music and coffee and tea are provided. There is a childrens' play area. Nursing staff are available for assistance.

  EMG Room (x4)

  EEG Room (x3)

Multipurpose Lab (EMG EP or EEG) x2 Research/MSLT lab

This was originally designed as a magnetically silent screened facility for single channel magnetoencephalography. It is currently being converted to a quiet room for Multiple Sleep Latency Test. It also houses a collection of generic neurophysiological equipment including amplifiers, digital tape recorders and analysis systems for future research programmes.

Video Telemetry

There is currently a single-bedded video-telemetry unit situated in Ward 67. This will return to a two bedded unit during the coming year and increased to a three bedded unit at that time. The unit has recently been re-equipped with the Xltek video telemetry system with three patient recording units, a portable unit and reader stations both at the ward level and in the main Neurophysiology department.

Offices

There are currently three consultant offices, and an office each for the associate specialist and the senior chief technician. The specialist registrars share an office. There are two secretarial offices, a reception desk/office, a technical office and a technicians’ rest room.

There is also a seminar room where records are reviewed and reported as well as computers for education and email.We have recently completed an extension housing two experimental laboratories for the Glasgow University Department of Psychology.

We have plans developing for a completely new-build department alongside outpatients scheduled for the Capital Program in 2005-2006.

Staffing

Equipment

EMG

2 Oxford Synergy Mobile Systems

3 Oxford Synergy T systems

2  Oxford Laptop Synergy Systems

3  Oxford Synergy Portable Systems  

EEG

                  3 Walter Graphtek mobile Systems

               1 Walter Graphtek portable system

               3 Ambulatory EEG recorders  

               2 Walter Graphtek review systems 

               2 Ambulatory EEG review station 

               3 Xltek Video Telemetry systems 

               2 Video Cameras

Other

                    1 Thermal threshold tester                 1 High quality Digital video camera                 1 Digital still Camera

Information Technology

Compaq Proliant Server (RAID 5)

Compaq Prolinea Server  

Videotelemetry Servers x2

Personal Computers

10/100 network  

ISDN access 

NHS Net access 

Fast Glasgow network access                    

Patient Administration System

The department forms a stand-alone network linked to the hospital system and NHS Net. All the EEG and EMG systems are connected to this network and two databases designed “in house” are used to:

Each secretary and consultant are equipped with a Personal Computer. A “hot desking” approach allows authorised individuals access to patient databases, reports, administrative and educational material from any of the PCs in the department. Security is maintained by a cascaded password system controlled by a central Windows NT server.

Telemedicine

Datalinks are in place which facilitate EEG reporting of data in our three satellite departments at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Glasgow Western Infirmary and Crosshouse hospital, Ayrshire.