Lancashire Selects Per-Se for Electronic Records

Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has signed a deal with Per-Se Technologies Inc. to implement its Patient clinical information system. The electronic record system, which will first be implemented by the Lancashire trust, is expected to eventually form the basis for a regional integrated electronic record.

The £8.3m contract represents Per-Se’s first sales of its Patient1 system in the UK. In the US Per-Se is a provider of IT services and systems for the healthcare industry.

Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust selected Per-Se’s Patient1 solution after four years of evaluating different electronic patient record (EPR) systems.

Patient1 provides an enterprise-wide infrastructure that unifies lifetime healthcare and medical care record information into a single electronic health record to achieve the cost-effective delivery of quality patient care and clinical outcomes.

Implementation will be phased over three-years to meet the Information for Health deadline of having a level-three EPR in place by 2005. The first priority will be to consolidate the Trust’s new patient administration system (PAS) requirements with electronic case notes, radiology, A&E, theatres and pathology results. Subsequent phases include ward order entry and results reporting (with GP web access) followed by e-prescribing (with Patient1’s unique proactive alerts), e-pharmacy and care pathways.

Tony Curtis, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust chief executive officer and RPR project director, said, "Patient1 offered a fully integrated clinical package that was already operational. It is also more elegant than the ‘Lego block’ approach, giving us a seamless infrastructure for sharing information across the community – now and into the future."

The agreement includes a wide range of fully managed Patient1 software and consulting services that support the Trust’s implementation strategy to use the EPR system’s enterprise-wide platform to modernise all multidisciplinary care delivery.

Lancashire Teaching Hospitals will implement Patient1 over a three-year period at two Trust hospitals, Chorley and South Ribble Hospital and Royal Preston Hospital.

The captured patient and clinical information will eventually be shared with 12 other acute care and community hospitals in the region, together with 25 hospitals in neighbouring regions and GP practices affiliated with the Trust – creating the basis for a regional electronic health record.

Per-Se Technologies say Patient1 creates an effective environment for the development of the electronic record. It offers healthcare providers with access to valuable data including current medications and many other key health factors.

Per-Se supports 47,000 physicians and 2,000 healthcare organizations, mainly in based the US. The company has been serving international clients since 1987 with operations in the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Canada, Brazil as well as the Middle East