Theatre Manager goes live at UCLH

University College London Hospitals (UCLH) NHS Foundation Trust has successfully deployed Picis Theatre Manager in 25 operating theatres across five hospitals, with the first users coming online three days ahead of schedule. It is the first time the software has been used in the UK.

The rollout is another milestone in the punishing IT development programme UCLH has embarked on to get systems up and running in time for the opening of its new, virtually paperless flagship hospital in London next month. The first patients are expected in June.

Chief executive Robert Naylor said the Picis system would have "fantastic benefits now and in the future."

Theatre Manager forms part of the Trust’s new electronic patient record (EPR), which will be supported by IDX Systems’ Carecast.

EPR product manager, Sian Ryan, told E-Health Insider she had been surprised at how quickly the new users – mostly theatre nurses – had learned to use the new system. "We trained some users who had never touched a PC before. Most areas are self-sufficient," she said.

Ryan expects the full benefits of the system to become apparent as staff gather experience but one area where gains are expected is in scheduling. "The system ‘learns’ how long a surgeon takes to do a procedure and this will eventually help with scheduling," she explained.

Picis has installations in 900 centres worldwide and describes itself as a specialist in high acuity and hard-to-automate areas of hospital activity, principally theatres, intensive care and high dependency.

Theatre Manager’s go-live marks the first phase of a two-phase roll-out. UCLH is now using the software to automate patient scheduling and in-theatre documentation to provide an electronic record of clinical care and surgery supplies.

The UCLH contracts were signed outside the National Programme for IT because of the tight deadlines for the new hospital. However, the work there is being watched closely by other NHS trusts in London and the South that are also due to use IDX Carecast as their clinical system when the national programme implementations are rolled out. Picis Theatre Manager will be deployed in those trusts too.

Picis’ UK general manager, Surrey Swayne, explained that phase two of the implementation will automate patient tracking, surgeon preferences and case costing. UCLH will be able use the clinical and financial data to help improve management of activity and assess outcomes of treatment.

"I saw an anaesthetist spend 90 minutes looking for an emergency patient. This would help her track the patient down," he explained. He added that phase two would also make it possible to keep a family informed of the progress of a loved one through surgery.