Welsh cancer network prescribes with CIS

CIS Oncology has completed the roll-out of its ChemoCare prescribing solution across eight cancer centres in South West Wales.

The final two hospitals, Neath Port Talbot Hospital and Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend, went live recently.

The system was already live in six hospitals – Singleton Hospital and Morrison Hospital in Swansea, Bronglais Hospital in Aberystwyth, Prince Philip Hospital in Lianelli, West Wales General Hospital in Carmarthen, and Withybush Hospital in Haverfordwest. 

The South West Wales Cancer Network awarded a five year contract to CIS in 2008 to create a fully networked chemotherapy prescribing solution across all the hospitals in its region.

Glynis Tranter, network director, said: “We are very pleased that there has been a successful roll-out of the system across the region. 

"[This was done in a] timely manner, so that we are able to comply with the requirements of the Welsh Assembly Government ‘Strategic Framework Designed to Tackle Cancer 2’.

"This required that there should be electronic chemotherapy prescribing in place within NHS Wales by the end of March 2010.

“Implementation of this system will also help the tumour site specific cancers multidisciplinary teams comply with the National Cancer Standards.”

The network says the implementation will reduce prescribing errors, allow clinicians to make more informed decisions when running clinics outside their cancer centre, reduce the time needed for drug preparation and reduce patient delays.

Tranter added: “The system has also improved communication across a large geographic area and will provide more robust audit data for the teams.”

The next stage of the project will include the roll-out of ChemoSchedule, an integrated resources management scheduling system, to aid resource planning across the network.

David Newey, programme manager of CIS Oncology said: “This project has been implemented with a customer who has demonstrated a true spirit of partnership and has been done in record time.

"It demonstrates ChemoCare’s ability to be implemented across a large geographical area and the principle that several PAS and pathology systems can feed one system using just the NHS Number as a primary patient identifier.”

Last September, CIS Oncology won a similar contract by NHS National Services Scotland for a national chemotherapy e-prescribing and administration system across Scotland.

The contract put in place a national framework from which each of Scotland’s regional cancer networks can enter into individual call-off contracts for software and services.

Link: CIS Oncology.