Rotherham installs TPP in A&E

The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust will install TPP’s SystmOne in A&E and is running a Meditech pilot to “re-engage” clinicians.

A new report presented to the trust board says The Rotherham has begun a pilot, called “the ortho project”, to reduce the time clinicians spend inputting data into the trust’s Meditech v6.0 electronic patient record system.

“The pilot has started in orthopaedics and once assessed will be rolled out across the trust,” says the EPR update.

Meditech staff will be onsite to support the trust during the pilot project in order to “define and demonstrate a re-usable process” that can then be deployed across the trust.

The project brief adds that The Rotherham wants to “re-engage” clinicians and “identify usability issues”. The system will continue to be used in other areas while the pilots take place.

The trust has experienced persistent issues with Meditech v6.0 since going live last June.

After an intervention by foundation trust regulator Monitor in February, the Rotherham stopped all go-lives of the system and hired an independent EPR expert, Larry Blevins, to undertake a review of the system.

He gave the trust three options for the future of Meditech; to remove the system completely and replace with another; to deconstruct Meditech to a PAS and install SystmOne in A&E; or to ‘fix’ Meditech, but still install SystmOne in A&E.

The latest board minutes say the trust has decided to leave Meditech installed and modify and install SystmOne in A&E.

The Meditech pilot will evaluate existing workflows against user requirements and support any reconfiguration of the system.

“The outcome of the project will be evaluated and a decision regarding future direction of the Meditech installation at the trust will be made by the board of directors,” says the project brief.

The trust submitted its official EPR recovery plan to Monitor last week and will meet with the regulator on 10 June to assess the future plans.

The implementation of Meditech v6.0 has been criticised heavily by Monitor.

Its ‘breach of authorisation’ letter to the trust said that The Rotherham, “has not managed EPR implementation in an effective way and it is unclear whether the trust has sufficient visibility over operational performance and quality issues, including incidents of patient harm”.

Blevins was initially hired for three months, but the trust has extended his contract for a further three. He is being paid £25,000 a month.

The Rotherham planned to spend £40m on its EPR implementation and has spent more than £21.5m to date.