Pathology services at three hospital trusts in Dorset are to begin using single laboratory information systems (LIMS).
One Dorset Pathology – which covers Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals, Dorset County Hospital and Poole Hospital under the Dorset Integrated Care System – has signed to replace 20-year-old pathology systems with a LIMS from CliniSys.
It will be integrated with the company’s ICE order communications solution to create an end-to-end workflow for ordering and conducting tests.
CliniSys said it is now working with One Dorset Pathology on an implementation plan, which is likely to involve a single activation rather than a site-by-site roll out.
Stephen Harding, head of service at One Dorset Pathology, said: “It would be difficult to run a consolidated testing service without a single LIMS, because our hubs and spokes need to use the same processes and communicate effectively with each other.
“By having a single system, we will also be able to open up results across the network, so that patients who have tests in one hospital will have the results available if they go to another hospital. That will be a significant benefit and will significantly improve patient care across the county.”
Data benefits
Harding said the new system is expected to be more user-friendly and to provide much better data on what is happening across the service’s labs.
“We’re also planning to replace all of our analytical equipment, and CliniSys will support the transition to our chosen analytics platform,” he added.
The contract has been structured to lay the ground for a group of hospital trusts in Hampshire and Wiltshire – under the Southern Counties Pathology banner – to use the service in the future.
One Dorset Pathology was set up in 2016 following the proposal from NHS Improvement for the creation of a series of networks, and has been credited as the first to launch a new procurement for a common LIMS.
Image by Daniel Sone, public domain via Wikimedia Commons
