United Lincolnshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (ULTH) has taken another step forward in its journey to introduce a trust-wide Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system.
The Trust has been given the green light by its Board following a rigorous tender process and is delighted to announce that Insight Direct (UK) implementing a Nervecentre solution have been selected as the preferred supplier for its EPR; subject to contract and national approval of the Full Business Case. Nervecentre has a strong track record in collaborating with the NHS, having worked with many trusts to implement EPRs.
Michael Humber, Chief Digital Information Officer at ULTH said: “As part of our EPR programme we have been investing in our digital infrastructure. The right core digital infrastructure is critical to the delivery of any EPR and we are ensuring that we have a right sized, resilient, secure and capable technology platform and end-user devices in place to support our EPR from the start.
“By making better use of technology we will have the opportunity to focus on improving care for patients, increasing patient safety and improving ways of working across all healthcare providers with the aim to improve patient experience. Once it is introduced, subject to contracts and national approval of the Full Business Case, the EPR will begin to be rolled out across our Trust.
“I am delighted that we have our preferred supplier identified and are closer to the transformative change that the EPR will bring for our Trust. Whilst the EPR is a digital tool, the benefits go far beyond the digital arena and will enable positive changes that will transform our services for patients and improve the working lives of healthcare staff across our region.”
Daren Fradgley, Group Chief Integration Officer and Senior Responsible Officer for the new EPR said: “We are now entering the next stage of our EPR journey and this is an exciting time for our Trust. NHS England is investing £1.9bn in NHS trusts to ensure they all meet a core level of digitisation and have Electronic Patient Record systems in place.
“The long-term sustainability of health and social care is dependent on having the right digital foundations in place, which means a capable technical infrastructure and easy access to the full patient record at the point of need. The investment into creating easily accessible information for our frontline teams will help us to reduce risks, improve efficiencies, help support collaborative working across the Lincolnshire Integrated Care System and will help us to improve the level of care provided to patients and will also assist with our delivery of clinical care in the Group.”
Dr Colin Farquharson, Group Chief Medical Officer, said: “This is a very exciting time for our Trust. The EPR will provide modern tools for our workforce that will create the ability for NHS staff to see patient data in real time which means they can work more effectively, efficiently and promote patient safety due to having immediate access to a comprehensive range of patient data.
For clinicians the EPR represents new opportunities that we are excited to see delivered. We had over 100 clinical and non-clinical colleagues involved in our EPR procurement evaluation, who gave their time and knowledge to ensure we will have a product that meets the requirements of our clinicians – which is to enable them to deliver the best care possible for our patients.”