Newly formed University Hospitals Dorset launches single EPR

The newly formed University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust has launched a single electronic patient record which will run across its two acute sites. 

The trust was formed following the merger of Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Having a single electronic record means that any clinical data captured at any of the three University Hospitals Dorset sites is instantly available to any clinician employed by the trust.

Poole Hospital uses Graphnet’s CareCentric software to share patient records between staff in the acute trust, in clinical networks, GP practices, social services, community teams and community hospitals.

The decision was made ahead of the merge to use Graphnet’s software to create a single strategic electronic patient record for Poole and Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals.

The deployment involved migrating 34 million items of clinical data and about 40 interfaces from the legacy system at Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals across to the Poole EPR.

Peter Gill, the trust’s director of informatics, said: “This is a truly wonderful achievement and a fantastic starting position for our merged trust. I don’t know of any trust in the country that could claim they have merged their EPR in advance of organisational merge.

“It has been a fantastic collaborative effort all round.”

Patient information is automatically fed into Graphnet’s software from the University Hospitals Dorset’s various departmental clinical information systems, is held in a repository and forms the wider electronic patient record.

Data fed in automatically includes PAS activity and outcomes, pathology results, radiology reports, GP referral letters, A&E discharge information, neurophysiology results, medical photography, cardio-respiratory results, clinic letters and other types of information.

Clinicians also enter information into the central record in real time at the point of care using a suite of over 100 structured electronic forms.  Forms are also used to drive a patient’s care pathway, with automated transmission to the next clinician or care professional.

In addition, Graphnet’s CareCentric software is used to launch systems such as order comms, electronic prescribing, the cross-community shared record (the Dorset Care Record) and the scanned paper record. This is via an embedded link in CareCentric, so the user does not have to log in separately or search for the relevant patient’s record. The trust’s PACS system will follow shortly.

Brian Waters, chief executive of Graphnet, added: “We’ve had a long and successful partnership with Poole Hospital and more recently with the Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals. We are delighted to build on the Trusts’ many achievements and to be moving forward in such a positive way with University Hospitals Dorset.”