DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Joining the dots to improve care
North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust, which employs more than 5600 staff and has a 570-bed capacity, has been using electronic patient records since 2015. Having built on these firm foundations, the Global Digital Exemplar ‘Fast Follower’ Trust is starting to realise the multiple clinical and efficiency benefits that come with digital transformation.
Having implemented the InterSystems’ TrakCare electronic patient record, the Trust has recently completed the roll out of a new electronic prescribing and medications administration (EPMA) module to all inpatient and emergency wards, marking the next stage in the Trust’s ambitious digital journey.
Described by Dr Graham Evans, the
Trust’s chief information and technology officer as “one of the biggest transformational changes we will implement as part of our EPR programme,” the successful adoption of the EPMA is changing and improving the way clinicians work - cutting red tape and improving outcomes for the 400,000 people who the Trust cares for every year. Consultant physician, Dr Jay Vasani, and senior clinical matron, Claire Ranson, assert that the new EPMA is having a big impact on patients and professionals at one of the UK’s most technologically advanced hospitals. “Dealing with hundreds of patients every day that need urgent care and support, TrakCare is changing how the busy emergency department at North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust works,” said Dr Jay Vasani. “The main benefits are that medications are visible whenever and wherever we need them, you can access vital prescribing information in seconds, which is essential in a crisis.”
The admissions and A&E departments are the latest to benefit from the introduction of a Trust-wide electronic prescribing and medicines administration (EPMA) system, part of the TrakCare deployment. “Patients want the person who is looking after them – the doctors, nurses and pharmacists – to have the information they need when they need it,” Dr Vasani continued. This is a situation that he concedes
wasn’t possible with the previous system in
The new EPMA, integrated within the comprehensive PAS and EPR systems, facilitates the effective handover of patient information between clinicians, across shifts and between wards, seamlessly connecting them all.
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place. In the past, patients admitted to A&E would be prescribed medications which would be recorded on paper, photocopied and shared across the Trust. A sea of paperwork would follow patients from A&E to the admissions unit, much of it written in haste as patients rapidly move between wards and care responsibility shifts between teams.
It’s a frustrating and inefficient process for clinicians which could potentially lead to unnecessary errors with paper records sometimes incomplete, difficult to find or even lost altogether. Replacing it with EPMA has changed everything. “TrakCare EPMA has made prescribing much simpler and more effective,” said Dr Vasani. “Clinicians can now access a complete prescribing record from the portable terminals, making it quicker to monitor and prescribe medications.” The system uses FDB’s Multilex for its medication clinical decision support.
Comprehensive prescribing information AUGUST 2019
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