Two Digital Aspirants select Cerner for implemented EPR

Two Digital Aspirants have selected Cerner to implement a fully integrated electronic patient records (EPR) system across both trusts.

The new EPR, powered by Cerner Millennium, will join together Royal Surrey and Ashford and St Peter’s NHS Foundation Trusts.

The system, internally named Surrey Safe Care, will replace paper-based records and processes, enabling staff to access a single, reliable and integrated source of clinical information containing relevant patient details such as test results, medications, discharge summaries and other information associated to their care.

In March 2020, NHSX named the 23 trusts which had been selected in the first wave of the Digital Aspirant programme.

The trusts would benefit from a share of £23million which would be put towards funding digital transformation programmes.

Both Royal Surrey and Ashford and St Peter’s were part of the first wave Digital Aspirants.

Simon Marshall, senior responsible officer for the project, said: “We are delighted to be working with Cerner as we embark on the journey to deliver on our mission of providing an exceptional, safe and efficient healthcare experience for our patients and staff.

“This is a great opportunity for us to transform the way we deliver care, moving from a paper-based way of working to an integrated 21st century solution. This will enable us to operate at the forefront of digital care and is an important milestone as recognised Digital Aspirant trusts.”

Together, the two trusts serve a population of approximately 800,000 people across six sites, and a wider population of 1.3 million for cancer services.

With key clinical information available at their disposal, regardless of where care was provided, clinicians and care professionals will be better equipped to make informed decisions in a faster and more efficient way, resulting in a more coordinated approach to effective and consistent care.

Other benefits include an increased capability to share resources and skill set between the two organisations and an opportunity to collaboratively re-design care pathways to deliver the highest possible quality of care.

Once rollout is complete, there is potential for the EPR to be scaled across the Surrey Heartlands Integrated Care System (ICS), enabling system-wide transformation and the delivery of truly integrated care.

Distie Profit, managing director for Cerner UK added: “Informed decision-making forms the basis of safe and reliable care. Making relevant and up-to-date patient information available at the point of care in a proven and integrated platform is fundamental to enable this.

“We are proud to have been chosen as the IT partners to support Ashford and Royal Surrey in this joint venture. Having supported a number of other NHS trusts as they go live with shared Millennium domains, we are confident that this project will bring a raft of benefits that will mark a before and after in the way care is provided to patients.”