Southern group looks for EDM and portal

A group of three Southern acute trusts hopes to attract central funding to purchase an electronic document management system and clinical portal.

Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust and Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust make up one of six Southern Acute Programme collaborative groups formed to invest in a variety of new IT systems.

The trusts, which got nothing from the National Programme for IT in the NHS, are hoping to secure central funding for the systems.

The consolidated outline business case for the acute projects is currently awaiting Treasury approval.

A case for funding community and child health systems has already been approved and TPP was announced as the winning bidder for the contract last month.

The Sussex collaboration initially wanted to procure e-prescribing, clinical documentation, order communications and an integrated clinical portal.

But it has since decided to focus on purchasing an EDM system and a clinical portal.

Western Sussex deputy director of informatics Simon Sturgeon said: “Once we began to look at the requirements of procuring the full set of functionality, the group decided the complexities and timescales of installation meant going for a reduced range was a better option."

He said e-prescribing and order communications will now be procured outside the Southern Programme processes “according to local priorities”, but that all the systems procured will be able to interoperate.

Sturgeon said the trusts expect to free up a lot of clinical and administrative time, making important efficiency and financial savings with the new systems.

“The main goal is to improve patient care by giving clinicians access to user-friendly information where and when they need it, so there’s no need to wait for paper copies or keep logging in to different systems,” he explained.

The short term aim is to connect the portal with each trust’s patient administration system, picture archiving and communications system and radiology information system. Ultimately, it will connect to the majority of the major clinical systems they use.

“This is definitely a stepping stone towards full EPR-style functionality – it gives clinicians a common look and feel across a wide range of patient information while still allowing them to use best-of-breed departmental solutions,” said Sturgeon.

He added that the amount of planning needed for a project on this scale means the trusts are not yet able to be precise on timescales.

However, the group is expecting to be ready to begin procurement as soon as the business case gets formal Treasury approval. Core functionality would then be rolled out over a 12-18-month period beginning in 2013-14.

“I am confident we have submitted a sound case for investment and this should put us in a good position to achieve success regardless of the funding source,” said Sturgeon.

“Clearly central funding would allow things to move faster than would otherwise be possible but the benefits of the functionality are so great and urgently needed that I believe trusts have to deliver them either way.”

He added that the trusts involved have a history or working together through the Sussex IM&T board – which looks at strategic IM&T issues across the county – and on the recent Surrey and Sussex PACs, RIS and VNA procurement.

“This relationship has worked well, all three trusts share many of the same ambitions and requirements and they understand we can achieve them more effectively by working together and sharing resources.

“Of course there will be challenges with conflicting priorities and building a single specification that meets the needs of all three organisations, but we have proven we can do this with the PACs/RIS/VNA procurement already.”