Over 100 NHS staff from across the country travelled to a Liverpool NHS Trust yesterday to see 
System C’s Medway PAS/EPR in live use.

The Open Day event was hosted by Aintree University Hospitals NHS Trust, where clinicians and managers have been working in close partnership with System C to develop an innovative electronic patient record (EPR) system.

The delegates, representatives of 25 different NHS Trusts, were told by Mike Frayne, the Trust’s chief operating officer, that Aintree was on course to have one of the most advanced EPR systems in the country by the end of the year.

More than 3,200 staff at University Hospital Aintree use the Medway PAS/EPR in their day-to-day work. Users include doctors, nurses, allied healthcare professionals, secretaries, clerks and managers.

The system’s features include electronic whiteboards on wards, which enable easier patient management, and close links with local GP practices so GPs and hospital doctors can see each other’s patient treatment details.

Ward Priestman, Director of Informatics at University Hospital Aintree, said: “Our IT strategy plays a crucial role in improving the quality of care we provide by enabling clinical staff to have all the information they need at their fingertips, from electronic whiteboards on wards to patient records.
“The key aspect is that the clinical teams have been involved in developing the systems we need. We were delighted to share the benefits of this work with our peers so that their patients can also benefit from it.”

Ward said the Trust was already paperless in parts and was successfully removing the need for paper - 100% of radiology orders are electronic, 90% of pathology and that figure was rising.
“This is just the start”, Ward said.  IM&T was Aintree’s biggest corporate Cost Improvement Programme contributor, was seen as an enabler and was underpinning strategy.

Dr Libby Wilson, a consultant in Emergency Medicine at University Hospital Aintree, said: “The electronic systems provide us with a snapshot of everything that’s going on in each department, giving us a whole new means of communicating between nursing and medical staff.

“For example, we can use the whiteboard to move someone who needs to be seen quickly higher up the priority status. In terms of patient safety, it is a huge improvement.”

Tracy Thrift, Assistant Director (ICT Programmes) at United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, was one of the delegates at the conference. She said: “It’s great to see a Trust using IT so successfully to enhance the patient experience. Hospital IT systems are hugely complex and Aintree has done really well.”