Medway NHS Foundation Trust has deployed the Sunrise electronic patient record (EPR) in its emergency department and its electronic prescribing and medicines administration (EPMA) function across the hospital.
The two deployments of the technology from Altera Digital Health went live in late September in phase two of the trust’s EPR delivery strategy. This followed the implementation of Sunrise across its 24 adult inpatient wards.
The trust carried out the deployment with a multidisciplinary team consisting of clinical, operational and IT staff, and with pharmaceutical leads supporting the EPMA delivery.
They drew on best practice approaches from other trusts using the Altera technology, and for the EPMA employed a transcribing team that included pharmacists from neighbouring trusts to transcribe notes for each patient.
Michael Beckett, director of IT at Medway NHS Trust, said: "We understand the importance of having clinical input into digital transformation projects and have taken steps to ensure that we have the right mix of expertise.
“Having a dedicated pharmacist on this project has been critical in terms of the development of the medication catalogue and order sets. This will ensure that our EPR provides improved patient safety, better auditing, and financial benefits in terms of stock control or prescribing management.”
Preventing negative impact
Suzanne O’Neill, EPR director at the trust, added: “ED (emergency department) is incredibly busy and so we had to ensure that the go-live didn’t have a negative impact. In order to mitigate this risk, we took steps such as bringing in extra staff and ensuring that digital champions were stationed within the department to provide support.
“We also provided a quiet room where the digital champions could give additional training, away from the busy department.”
Beckett said the deployment has enabled surgeons to clearly read what is written on drug charts and use a catalogue stating dosages, and helped the trust meet the requirements of the Professional Records Standards Body.
