Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Basis Belief (QVH) has gone dwell with its first digital affected person file (EPR) system.
The specialist hospital in West Sussex, which gives reconstructive surgical procedure, burns care, and rehabilitation companies, labored with Altera Digital Well being to launch the Dawn platform, nicknamed ‘Archie’ on 4 November, changing lots of their affected person and scientific paperwork in paper kind.
NHS England supported the belief with funding via its £1.9bn frontline digitisation challenge to assist all trusts throughout England to have an EPR system in place by 2026.
Kirsten Timmins, chief working officer at QVH, stated: “I witnessed one of many smoothest transitions from analogue to digital, and we couldn’t have performed it with out our employees embracing this journey.
“It has been a privilege to be a part of this work bringing collectively QVH employees, digital and technical contractors, Altera Digital Well being, NHSE groups, and assist from neighbouring trusts.
“The success of the rollout really displays our values as now we have succeeded collectively. Archie EPR will rework the best way we work collectively and throughout the NHS.”
The EPR is central to QVH’s long-term technique to turn into a completely digitally-enabled NHS supplier by permitting scientific groups throughout Sussex, Surrey, and Kent to obtain info from a single, unified supply of information.
The transition was supported by 120 members of employees who grew to become ‘digital champions’ and floorwalkers from Altera, NHS England, and different native NHS Trusts.
Mark Hutchinson, govt vice chairman at Altera Digital Well being (UK & EMEA), stated: “Enormous congratulations to QVH on the profitable go dwell of its first EPR and for considerably advancing the belief’s digital maturity.
“The brand new EPR is offering a single supply of affected person information, so scientific groups have complete, real-time info at their fingertips to enhance decision-making and affected person security.
“This can be a incredible achievement that was made doable by the group’s unwavering dedication all through to make sure it remained patient-focused, clinically-led and digitally-enabled.”
Within the first week, 4,064 scientific paperwork had been created, 2,729 prescriptions had been prescribed, and 11,305 different scientific programs had been accessed by way of Archie EPR.
The system will permit nursing and scientific groups to obtain digital notifications to undertake evaluations and guides for choice assist to allow proactive and responsive care. The belief goals to proceed optimising the system, giving employees extra time to concentrate on delivering care.
Romana Balle, chief nursing info officer at QVH, stated: “Archie EPR marks the start of QVH’s digital journey. It represents a foundational step in modernising our scientific programs and strengthening the digital functionality of our organisation.
“The implementation was very profitable and we had optimistic suggestions on clearer entry to affected person info and extra environment friendly methods of working for groups throughout the Belief and with the broader NHS.”
QVH awarded a £10 million contract for its EPR system to Perception Direct in April 2024, subcontracting companies to Altera.
The contract with Altera will run for an preliminary interval of 5 years, with the potential for it to be prolonged for an additional two years, as much as a most contract size of seven years.
