Ipswich installs first national programme iCM

Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust has become the first trust to receive an iSoft iCM clinical system under the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) after local service provider Computer Sciences Corporation deployed the system with the iPM patient administration system (PAS) last weekend.

As well as the Ipswich deployment, CSC also implemented an iPM PAS in the Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust – the first time CSC has delivered two NPfIT acute deployments over the same weekend.

The Northampton go-live brings CSC’s total to 18 hospital PAS systems delivered in the three regions covered by the company’s contracts with the NHS.

Ipswich and Northampton are both trusts in the clusters which were formerly overseen by Accenture bringing the total implementations in the East and North-east clusters to three and completing the deployments which in July last year, Accenture told the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee would be completed by 31 October 2006.

A CSC spokesperson confirmed to E-Health Insider that they had implemented their first iCM clinical system under their deal with the National Programme for IT as local service provider for the North-west and West Midlands, East and North-eastern clusters.

In a joint statement the LSP CSC and Ipswich said: “The Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust went live as scheduled on Monday 23 April with the first order communications and results reporting system to be delivered by CSC as a part of the NHS National Programme for IT being rolled out across the country. Not only was this first clinical system installed but also a new electronic patient administration system went live at the same time which included A&E.

“This was a major undertaking for the trust and CSC as it involved over 16.8m individual patient records being transferred on to the new system and over 1,900 staff being trained to operate the new system.”

The CSC spokesperson added that the trust had been fully prepared for the introduction for the iCM system, which had been championed to staff by the trust’s medical director and director of information, Ian Scott, who is also a Connecting for Health national clinical lead.

In the statement, they added: “On the whole the implementation has gone well but, of course, we must bear in mind that this is early days. As with all major new system implementations there may be some teething problems and the trust and CSC will work together to resolve them. Patients attending out-patient clinics and accident and emergency have been made well aware of the changes and how it may affect them. The trust has posted notices informing them of this major step forward in the use of IT to improve NHS services.

“Staff have responded well to the challenge of working with a new system. The system provides staff with access to an electronic patient record for every patient they treat and supports staff in treating patients quickly and effectively, as it accurately tracks patients within the trust. It also enables electronic requests and results for diagnostic testing to be sent directly to radiology and pathology departments.”

Northampton’s director of planning and development, Christine Allen, told EHI that the trust was well prepared for their go-live, with staff being told to use paper-based records during data migration.

“We have now spent considerable time planning for this system change and we are hoping that the changeover will happen with as little disruption to our services as possible,” she said.

A few glitches appear to have plagued the early days, however. EHI has seen service notifications indicating that Northampton’s iPM system is failing to update legacy systems, which may cause delays to routine business processes.