Peterborough invests in health IT

Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has chosen System C as preferred bidder for an electronic patient record.

The trust has also gone live with an electronic observations system from Nervecentre and analytics software from Connexica.

The EPR procurement was done via the NHS Shared Business Services Framework for a replacement patient administration and emergency department system.

The trust told Digital Health the bid is subject to securing funding and is still in the early stages of contractual negotiations.

Peterborough will use the new software to replace its 25-year old CliniCom PAS. It plans to install Medway over 12 months, starting this September.

Two wards at the trust have already gone live with Nervecentre's electronic observations  system, with roll-out due to continue during spring this year. Funded by the Nursing Technology Fund, the software also includes a handover function for doctors and nurses.

Chief nurse Jo Bennis said the implementation enables nurses to record clinical observations and data on hand held devices at the bedside and analyse the vital sign data instantly. 

"The captured information will be used to assist the decision making process for timely escalation to medical teams including the Critical Care Outreach Team and improve the quality of handover information between nursing and clinical teams," she said.

Another Nervecentre system, Hospital-at-Night, is planned to be deployed later in 2016, which will allow escalations and job lists to be transferred via the system out of hours.

The trust has also started deploying new analytics software from Connexica called CXAIR.

The initial focus is on the hospital’s A&E department with the development of a daily dashboard showing the department’s performance.

Another early application will be to examine discharge rates in an attempt to reduce lengths of stay.

Alec Dearden, head of information services at the trust said: “this represents a step change in the way clinical staff and executives across the trust will be able to use data to understand pressure points, improve our services to patients and to measure how well we are delivering against our goals.

“Staff throughout the hospital will no longer need to request reports from the information team. Self-service analytics will allow people to immediately see where they need to take action.”

The trust will also use CXAIR to monitor major investments. It is already being applied to the trust’s electronic document management programme with Kainos Evolve.