Kettering live with Medway

Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust went live with its Medway patient administration system over the weekend.

A spokesperson for the trust said the system was up and running across the hospital with no problems or queues for patients.

The trust signed a contract with System C, a McKesson company, in May last year to replace the trust’s decade old PAS and implement an electronic patient record system.

Director of strategy and partnerships at Kettering, Mike Smeeton, said the change had been in the pipeline for a while.

“The hospital’s current patient administrations system is 12 years old and we have been looking to replace it for some time,” said Smeeton.

“We now have a product that will enable us to use less paper forms and record information more efficiently, directly onto the computer system.”

Smeeton said the trust was expecting possible short delays in booking patients onto the system as “it takes a little time for staff to get used to it.”

“It will be a big benefit for the hospital, which deals with more than 300,000 patients appointments each year, because it will enable us to more easily keep all this paperwork together electronically,” he said.

Kettering was due to become an early adopter of CSC’s Lorenzo EPR under the National Programme for IT in the NHS, but decided to purchase Medway using the Additional Supply Capability and Capacity framework.

The trust invested in an Integrated Clinical Information System from IBA Health in 2001.

At the time, the trust was hopeful of making a “breakthrough” with its IT and giving staff access to much of what became known as Clinical 5 functionality, via a web browser.

However, IM&T strategies dating back five years suggest it faced a number of problems integrating ICIS with its ageing systems and with finding space for its remaining paper records.

McKesson purchased System C in May 2011 and has since won a number of NHS contracts.

Other trusts due to go live this year are; Whittington Health; Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Founcation Trust; and Southend University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.