East and North Herts goes live with Lorenzo after WannaCry forces delay

East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust has deployed its Lorenzo electronic patient record (EPR) after “considerable disruption” from WannaCry caused a delay.

The trust was due to go live with the EPR on July 1 but was forced to postpone due to the impact of the cyber-attack in the organisation. The ransomware’s effects included complete loss of IT systems and some telephony systems.

Anthony Lundrigan, chief information officer at East and North Herts, confirmed it has now gone live with DXC Technology’s Lorenzo “following many weeks of detailed preparations.”

“From a technical point of view, Lorenzo’s launch was successful, and overall the trust’s staff have engaged positively with the change”, Lundrigan said.

“The focus since the launch has been on sorting out the usual teething problems that follow such a major piece of work, as well as supporting staff in applying their training as they get used to working with the new systems.”

The trust’s chief executive Nick Carver said, having spoken to colleagues who have rolled out similar systems in other NHS hospitals across the country, “it is clear that our staff have done very well over the last week or so”.

“We’re now at the point of sorting out the inevitable teething problems that come with such a major project, but I would like to thank our staff publicly for their hard work – and our patients and local GPs for their understanding and patience over the last few days”, Carver said.

Lorenzo was deployed at the trust between September 8 and 11. It forms part of East and North Herts’ digital transformation programme, under which electronic observation system Nervecentre is also being deployed.

The trust provides care for about 500,000 people annually, and operates from four different hospitals.

A number of other organisations have gone live with Lorenzo in recent months. Digital Health News reported on North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare’s implementation in May and deployments at Papworth and at Mid-Essex in June.

Lorenzo was one of the EPRs due to be deployed under the National Programme for IT, but planned deployments ran into repeated development delays.