Sheffield Teaching Hospitals delays £85m Oracle EPR go-live

Exclusive: Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has delayed the go-live date for its Cerner Millennium electronic patient record (EPR) to deal with “outstanding issues” around system and organisational readiness.

The trust announced in February 2024 that it had signed a 10-year contract with Oracle Health for the £85 million EPR, which was planned to launch by the end of the year.

However, Kirsten Major, chief executive at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust told Digital Health News that the trust was not in the “best possible position” for the go-live.

“Our new EPR is one of the biggest investments we have made and has the potential to transform how we work to benefit the timeliness, quality and safety of patient care.

“For this reason, we always said we would only go live if we felt we were in the best possible position not just in terms of system readiness but also organisational readiness.

“After very careful consideration we made the decision in October to give ourselves more time to address some outstanding issues which we considered important to achieve this,” Major said.

She added that the trust is “undertaking the work to inform a decision on a go-live date to be made”.

The Cerner Millennium EPR will replace the trust’s current Lorenzo EPR which is supplied by Dedalus.

Major told Digital Health News in February 2024 that the trust was embarking on “a wider transformation programme to change our processes and pathways” to help get “maximum patient benefit” from the EPR.

She added that the trust also planned to introduce a patient portal in future phases of the system’s implementation to enable patients to access their medical records and book or manage their appointments.

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS FT had previously abandoned a £400 million EPR tender in 2021 owing to concerns that it would not “deliver a competitive result”.

Meanwhile, Airedale NHS FT announced in September 2024 that it had pushed back the go-live date for its Cerner Millennium EPR system to November 2024.

A statement on the trust’s website said: “Our aim was to introduce our new EPR in September 2024. This date has now been changed to November 2024.

“This date has been reviewed to ensure that when the EPR goes live it is safe and efficient. We would never introduce a new system unless we are confident that it will be safe.”

Digital Health News approached Oracle Health for comment but did not recieve a response.