Isle of Man hospital aims to be paperless by 2018

The Isle of Man government has launched the latest strand of its five year, public services digitisation project at the Noble’s Hospital.

Health and social care minister Howard Quayle unveiled a ‘Digital Future’ programme for the hospital that builds on its use of System C’s Medway patient administration system, which went live in July 2015.

The hospital will now add an electronic document management system, with 100,000 paper-based medical and maternity records scanned into IMMJ’s EDM, MediViewer, which will be fully integrated into Medway.

It will also roll out Medway’s clinical noting and implement order communications, e-prescribing, and e-discharge planning.

At the launch event at the end of August, Quayle said: “Along with the rest of the world, we are moving into an increasingly digital age, where paper and scribbled notes – with all their inefficiencies and potential for error – will fade into the past.  

“Digital platforms ensure that those who need information have access to it, with patients themselves increasingly in charge of their own information.”

The Isle of Man is a self-governing crown dependency, which mostly runs its own affairs, although foreign relations and defence are handled by the British government.

The health and social care system is centred on the 20 ward, 314 bed Noble’s hospital, which provides acute care, with tertiary services handled by NHS trusts in the North West of England.

The island is working on a project launched in 2014 to ‘streamline’ its acute, mental health, community, GP and social care services. Medway is key to this integrated approach, and the island also uses its social care (Liquidlogic) and shared record (Graphnet) solutions.

The Isle of Man was an important win for System C. Noble’s Hospital launched company’s Medway 4 system, its ‘new generation’ electronic patient record, in July 2015, after a year-long deployment.

The system includes built-in clinical noting and task management functionality, order communications and results reporting, e-prescribing, observations and charting, and improved departmental systems.

However, Digital Health reported that the initial deployment covered the PAS plus maternity, A&E, and business intelligence modules.

Speaking at the Digital Future launch, Richard Wild, the chief information and digital officer at Noble's Hospital, said: "This is a major commitment, buildingon the work already undertaken across many parts of the hosptial.

"Many UK trusts have struggled to do this, but I am confident that we will achieve our goal of removing paper records by the end of 2018."

If it achieves this, it will hit English health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s original ‘paperless’ target; which was put back to 2020 in the ‘Personalised Health and Care 2020’ strategy, and which has now been pushed out to 2023 following the Wachter Review.

Markus Bolton, the joint chief executive of System C, said: “The Isle of Man is a longstanding System C client and we are pleased to see it heading towards a paper-free environment.

“The full integration of MediViewer has been a very successful project, and it has provided an excellent addition to our product portfolio.”