Newcastle prepares for go-live

Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is preparing to go-live with the electronic patient record system for which it partnered with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre last year.

Trust director of programmes André Snoxall told E-Health Insider that despite some minor delays the trust is “cautiously optimistic” that it will go live with the Cerner system at the end of August.

“The main issue has been the extent and complexity of migration of data, which has placed a stress on the dates,” he said. “There have also been issues with compliance with NHS Connecting for Health, which has really stressed us and has been far more complex than anticipated.”

In April 2008, Newcastle announced that a UPMC implementation team would help it to install and adapt five electronic patient record applications at five city hospitals.

The trust’s decision to award an EPR contract outside the National Programme for IT in the NHS came after it rejected the solution offered by its then-local service provider Accenture.

Instead, it placed an advert in the Official Journal of the European Union. After monitoring developments following the appointment of a new LSP, CSC, it decided to continue its move outside NPfIT and partner with UPMC.

Snoxall said: “It’s the first time CfH have tried to engage with an individual trust, because usually they deal with large organisations as part of NPfIT. So far, every facet of what we have done has been investigated by CfH, with a single person managing every point of the contract.”

The trust intends to go-live with the new Cerner Millennium PAS at the end of August. This will include admission, transfer and discharge summaries, booking and scheduling of theatres and Choose and Book. “This will all go live across the whole trust, 1,500 beds and 11,000 staff,” Snoxall said.

At the end of September, the trust hopes to go-live with investigations ordering and results review, which will initially be rolled out at the Freeman Hospital. Electronic prescribing will be rolled out in phases until October next year.

Snoxall said: “The roll-out will again begin at the Freeman Hospital and move from one area at a time until October 2010. We will then look at further changes and when those have been made it will be rolled-out in more delicate areas, such as intensive care.”

He added the trust is trying to strike a balance between going live on a specific date and going live when the system is right.

“We are trying to be sensible by not sticking to particular dates and are continuing to fix the problems with data as we come across them. We’re just taking things one step at a time in order to manage risk effectively and be well informed as to when we are ready to go-live,” he said.

Training began last month to ensure that all administration and nursing staff are fully trained before the PAS goes live. Clinicians will receive online training, which is being developed.

The trust is also issuing a newsletter and running open invitation sessions every two weeks to keep staff updated on the programme’s progress. These are “extremely well attended.”

Snoxall said that around 25 people from UPMC and Cerner and are onsite all day, every-day, working alongside a 25 strong programme team, which is also working “flat out.”

He said: “The integrator, UPMC, has contracted Cerner into providing the support for us so this is a very much a fully engaged partnership, which is really helping us to get across the line.”

Link: UPMC