Royal Brompton speeds up network

Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust is working with Alcatel-Lucent to upgrade its network infrastructure as part of a clinical systems transformation project.

The trust is currently running pilots of CSC’s Medchart electronic prescribing and medicines administration system and Kainos’ Evolve electronic document management system.

It has also signed a deal to implement CSC’s Lorenzo electronic patient record system, becoming only the second trust to take Lorenzo outside of the terms of a central agreement between CSC and the Department of Health for NME trusts.

Joanna Smith, Royal Brompton and Harefield’s chief information officer, told EHI News that the infrastructure work with Alcatel-Lucent is part of a “major transformation” at the trust to upgrade its clinical systems.

“In order for that to have a good chance of success, we’ve got to have the basics in place.”

Smith said the trust’s IT infrastructure had suffered in the past from a lack of sustained investment,  with problems including issues with reliability across different sites.

She said the deal with Alcatel-Lucent is to ensure the trust has a core and wireless network that is “robust, reliable, available and future-proofed as much as we can”, with the capacity to handle transmission of videos, images and voice files.

“We really needed to investment in a platform that can allow us to do that as easily as possible.”

The Alcatel-Lucent unified access solution will provide a more reliable and faster service across the trust’s different sites, Smith said.

“As we move computers around the wards, we will be able to retain connectivity instead of dropping out and getting re-connection problems.”

The new network will also provide the ability to support a bring-your-own-device policy, with individuals’ mobile devices able to be authenticated and cleared for access to the network.

Smith said the upgrade of the core network has been completed and implemented, while the wireless network is “pretty much upgraded and overhauled”.

The project will be completed by the end of the year, in time to move ahead on the implementation of the trust’s new clinical systems, she said.