Two RiO trusts to switch EPR

Two RiO trusts in London and the south have chosen to move to new electronic patient record system suppliers before the end of their national contracts this October.

Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust will switch to Advanced Health and Care’s Carenotes system in September and Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust will go live with TPP’s SystmOne Mental Health this ‘autumn’.

The trusts are members of the 2015 clinical information systems consortium, which created a framework to procure new systems before the end of the National Programme for IT contracts in six months’ time. 

The organisations in London and the South got Servelec’s (previously CSE's) RiO electronic patient record system delivered by BT under the programme.

David Jackland, associate director of ICT at Camden and Islington, said Carenotes will increase productivity by reducing reliance on paper-based records.

The system includes a dedicated mental health patient portal, allowing patients to more easily access records and case notes, and the trust also plans to enable mobile working.

“With the Carenotes solution, we are looking forward to helping our clinicians, from all specialties and disciplines, share information more effectively," Jackland said.

"Our staff will be able to work better together, with the shared goal of improving outcomes for patients. Working in partnership [with Advanced] will enable us to take significant steps towards becoming a paper-light organisation, which is the trust's longer-term ambition."

Surrey and Borders plans to go-live with SystmOne Mental Health across 130 services this autumn.

The trust’s major IT projects director Owen Powell said it will allow staff to retrieve and record information more easily, which will improve speed and efficiency.  Also, to securely share data in real time with other services and support mobile working.

“The new system will support clinicians by prompting medication, care plans and health action plan reviews,” he said.

“This will help our drive to focus on a person’s physical wellbeing as well as their mental health.”

Future plans include monitoring the prescribing of all medications and having pathology results automatically populated into the SystmOne record.