Royal Brompton takes Lorenzo

Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust has agreed a deal with CSC to deploy its Lorenzo electronic patient record system and Medchart electronic medicines management system.

The trust will become only the second to take Lorenzo outside of the terms of a central agreement between CSC and the Department of Health for NME trusts.

Joanna Smith, the trust’s chief information officer, said the trust’s IT transformation programme is based on a ‘best of breed’ approach, with CSC standing out as the best supplier.

“Through a rigorous competitive process, we concluded that CSC’s Lorenzo and MedChart will allow us to accelerate our transformation plan, and enable us to provide better care for patients.”

Earlier this year, Smith told EHI the trust had a pressing need to replacing its legacy CSC PAS, which had reached the end of its life.

“If the PAS doesn’t work, there will be a hell of a mess. CSC have said they won’t cut us loose if we need them to support us, and the system is now locked down, with very tight change control,” she said.

The web-based MedChart solution includes electronic prescribing, pharmacy review, drug administration and clinical decision support, and is designed reduce risk, error and inefficiency and improve coordination between clinical teams.

The trust made a successful bid for an e-prescribing and medicines administration system in the first round of NHS England’s technology fund, along with another successful bid for electronic document management. It should receive a total of £2.9m from the ‘Safer Hospitals, Safer Wards: Technology Fund’ for the two projects.

Smith said the trust is also upgrading its core network and setting up a wireless network so clinicians can access information as they more around the hospital.

It is also upgrading or replacing more than 2,500 PCs to make sure that they can run Microsoft’s relatively modern operating system, Windows 7.

The revised agreement between CSC and the DH, which Royal Brompton is not part of, gave NME trusts central funding for software and deployment costs if they could provide a robust business case for deploying Lorenzo.

The Lorenzo EPR is already live in 12 NHS trusts, with a further five deploying over the next year.

Philippe Houssiau, CSC vice president responsible for UK healthcare, said the company is “delighted” by Royal Brompton’s decision to take Lorenzo and MedChart.

“Lorenzo will bring real clinical benefits, including easier access and sharing of information, improved clinical risk management and quicker referral triage [and] independent studies have shown that MedChart is associated in a significant reduction in medical errors.

“We look forward to building on our existing relationship with the trust as it continues to transform care delivery.”