Sherwood Forest Hospitals selects Nervecentre for EPMA solution

Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has selected Nervecentre to deploy an Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (EPMA) solution.  

Last year the trust bid successfully for £1.25million of national funding for an EPMA solution which led it to selecting Nervecentre.

The mobile based, closed loop capable system is being developed by clinicians to enable current paper-based prescription ‘drug charts’ to be used digitally by doctors, nurses and other health care professionals who administer drugs alongside pharmacy colleagues.

The trust has already worked with Nervecentre and has deployed other technology including Electronic Observations, Patient Flow, and Hospital at Night.

A key benefit of the EPMA solution is being able to use the existing Nervecentre architecture with clinical staff already having strong knowledge and functional usability of the main system.

Morgan Thanigasalam, clinical lead for digital innovation and transformation, said: “This excellent news is the result of a huge amount of work by medical, nursing, pharmacy, Allied Health Professional, NHIS, finance and procurement colleagues – my personal thanks to them all, especially as it is not always clear how much effort goes into getting to this point.

“Especially pleasing is the fact that Nervecentre want to work with us in developing their product both in terms of EPMA and how it links with what we already use – leading to further improvements in patient safety and care as well as supporting the experience of clinicians.”

For trust staff, the solution will support an up to date and locally defined medicines formulary, as well as significant improvements to processes that impact on patient flow, digital entry and management of prescriptions, electronic communication between wards/departments and pharmacy, removal of paper prescription charts and enhanced communication with GPs and wider primary care.

David Selwyn, the trust’s medical director, added: “Our clinical colleagues told us that the number one clinical priority for them was moving towards an electronic prescribing system; EPMA.

“Therefore, this contract award to Nervecentre is fantastic news as it supports our drive to improve patients’ safety within our organisation. At the same time, an EPMA will help all our clinical staff in their day to day work and is a key component of achieving our vision of healthier communities and outstanding care for our patients and local community.”