Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has been officially approved to take the Lorenzo electronic patient record system and has appointed a chief clinical information officer.
The trust first announced its plans to take the Lorenzo EPR from CSC, under the company's revised deal with the Department of Health, in May last year.
Since then the trust has submitted a series of business cases to the CSC LSP Programme Board, which meets monthly to consider trust business cases for the system, and the board has given Barnsley a final green light to take the system. This means it will get central funding for deployment and service costs.
To ensure the EPR project is clinically driven, the trust has appointed a CCIO, Dr Dominique Chan-Lam.
Dr Chan-Lam said the trust plans to go live with the first phase of Lorenzo late this summer and that clinical engagement will be key to getting the project off the ground.
“The strategy to take a system-wide approach to support transformation of services with a strong clinical leadership is fundamental to the hospital,” he said.
“The deployment of Lorenzo at the heart of the EPR at Barnsley is a key step towards delivery of more integrated patient care.”
The first phase of the Lorenzo EPR will include a patient administration system, emergency care, clinical documentation, static care plans, advanced bed management and day care modules.
The trust has also appointed three clinical IT leads across different departments to support the CCIO and the EPR programme.
These are: consultant haematologist Dr Jean-Pierre NG Ping Cheung; consultant physician in endocrinology and diabetes Dr Elizabeth Uchegbu; and Mr Suhail Anwar, a consultant general surgeon.
“We already have a strong record of clinical engagement within the hospital and this role will further strengthen that approach by ensuring dedicated clinical time to lead the introduction and use of technology,” said Dr Chan-Lam.
Barnsley has also established an ‘EPR Change Network’ which includes staff from all levels across the trust. The aim of the network is to shape the configuration of the system and lead change locally.