Fife’s EPR Implemented Early

Siemens Healthcare Services  has announced that Fife Acute Hospitals NHS Trust has successfully gone live with the first stage of an electronic patient record (EPR) system supplied by Capula Elan across three hospital sites six weeks early.

Half a million patient records from the legacy Homer patient administration system (PAS) at Victoria Hospital & Forth Park hospitals have been successfully merged with another 500,000 records from Queen Margaret Hospital’s existing Oasis system. In addition over 800 users across the trust have received training in the use of Oasis.

The trust signed a 15-year contract Siemens Healthcare Services in March 2002 (as first reported by E-Health Media), which will ultimately provide a single, integrated IT system to manage both the administrative and clinical process within the trust and with the wider health community.

Under the contract Siemens Healthcare Services, which is the prime contractor and managing the project, is supplying the Trust with the Oasis system from its British partner Capula Elan.

The Oasis EPR system has initially been introduced at the two main acute hospitals in Fife, Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline and Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy. The next phase of the project will be to introduce the system into the Trust’s Emergency department.

Within two years local GP surgeries will also be provided with computerised patient health records delivering significant benefits to patients, replacing an old iSOFT system.

Gordon Greenshields, Director of Finance and Information at Fife Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said: “We are extremely pleased with progress in rolling out Oasis EPR across the Trust, the project has been delivered smoothly and well ahead of schedule, although with a project of this size there have been problems, but these have been solved quickly and effectively by our combined team.”

He added that the trust had developed a real partnership with Siemens and Capula Elan, which was proving vital to developing and implementing the project. “All our users are fully trained and ready to go live with the system which undoubtedly will enhance the quality and consistency of the patient care we can provide to the population of Fife.”

Further benefit to patients will come from the second stage of the project, which began in September 2002. This will provide GPs with on-line access to clinical and laboratory results.

However, the full benefits of the new integrated system are expected in two years time once electronic records become fully available and ECCI (Electronic Clinical Communications Implementation) will enable GPs to get second opinions more quickly and allow them to book hospital appointments for patients direct from their surgeries.

The 15-year contract to supply Oasis electronic patient records to the 949 bed acute trust in Dunfermline, Scotland, was awarded to Siemens Healthcare Services in 2002 following a five year evaluation of Oasis at Queen Margaret Hospital.