Northampton live with Medway Maternity

Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust has successfully deployed Medway Maternity at its main hospital site and will now roll it out throughout the community of Northamptonshire.

Northampton is implementing Medway in two phases. The first phase involved going live in the labour, delivery and postnatal suites.

The software went live with 320 staff just 6 months after the contract was awarded. The trust expects to use the software to help manage some 4,600 births a year. In its first eight hours of use the software handled nine deliveries, including a set of twins.

Phase one includes a full interface to the trust’s iSoft iPM patient administration system for demographics and admissions, discharges and transfers, as well as an interface to existing McKesson Child Health system.

The first phase also allows for net change and bulk replacement of maternity information for reporting purposes.

The second phase, due to go live later this year, will involve integration with cardiotocography (CTG), and Sunquest’s web-based ICE pathology test requesting and results reporting, and community midwifery.

Matt Tucker, directorate manager for Obstetrics and Gynaecology, said: "I am really pleased with the implementation of Medway and think the success so far has been the result of an excellent and mature working relationship between System C and ourselves.”

Tucker added: We have a lot more work to do and I have every confidence that, because of this good working relationship and the excellent people in the Trust who are supporting the implementation, we will now start to see delivery of the benefits we identified.”

Medway Maternity is the new product name for the Eclipse maternity Information system that System C bought from Huntleigh Healthcare in 2008.

System C said that Medway enables integration to existing third party systems, such as ultrasound and CTG, and to remote and mobile users such as health visitors and GP surgeries.

The integration of all records relating to a pregnancy, particularly the clinical record and the ultrasound record, is expected to lead to important efficiency and risk management benefits. Additional risk management features of Medway Maternity are said to include a system of alerts, audit reporting and the identification of high risk women.

Dr Ian Denley, chief executive of System C, said: “It is really important that deployments are efficient and that systems bring benefits. I am really pleased that it has gone so well at Northampton General Hospital.”

Northampton General Hospital serves a population of 360,000 and has an annual turnover of £170m. It employs around 200 midwives and 30 medics on maternity services, supported by around 50 healthcare assistants.