Improving Our Digital Infrastructure

As part of our Getting to Good improvement journey, we are transforming our digital services to help us to improve the quality, safety and experience of care that we provide our patients

As part of our overarching digital strategy, we are progressing the delivery of a new Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system. This is a crucial three-year piece of improvement work, being delivered in two phases, which will revamp and modernise how we store and access patient notes.

EPR will ensure a more accurate reflection of the patient journey and, while this will not lead to a completely paperless system, it will help to standardise how patient information is managed across all sites and take our organisation a step closer to realising its digital ambitions by 2025. You can find out more about EPR, and what the first phase involves, through our regular awareness sessions –details here

As part of EPR, we have already implemented the BlueSpier Theatre Management system in our Theatres, and we are now rolling out CareFlow, which will replace SemaHelix, Wardvision and ED Whiteboard - completing the first phase of our digital transformation.

CareFlow is a Patient Administration System which will provide colleagues with access to up-to-date information and improve the quality of information we record. It will also help equip our emergency teams to track patients as they move through the department, and onto theatre or further investigations.

The first quarter of the programme this year is being dominated by ‘sprints’. These are intensive short periods of work focused on looking at specific elements of the patient journey. Since the start of the year, the digital services team has been working with departments as part of the sprints, spending time with divisions and specialties to ensure the new CareFlow system will be set up correctly and that new processes are signedoff and fit for purpose.

So far, the sprints have resulted in a wealth of information that will assist the implementation of CareFlow and help ensure the switch over runs as smoothly as possible.

Nigel Lee, Interim Director of Strategy and Partnerships, said: “The work that has been carried out in the first part of the year is critical to the smooth implementation of CareFlow applications across the Trust. We have been grateful for everyone’s help with this as it will help us implement a system that works for colleagues in their working environment in the best possible way.”

In our next edition we will be looking in detail at the two phases of the EPR programme and the benefits to both patients, and colleagues.

“The rollout of EPR across the organisation will help to support our teams in their roles and to deliver better care for our patients, which we know is important to everyone.”

Dr John Jones, Executive Medical Director