The North of England Regional Spinal Cord Injuries Centre at The James Cook University Hospital, Middlesborough, part of South Tees Hospitals NHS Trust, has just signed a contract with IMS MAXIMS plc for an integrated clinical record system. The purpose-built Regional Spinal Injuries Centre, which opened in 2002, serves a population of approximately 3.5 million people throughout an area from the Scottish Border down to the Southern Lake District and York. The proposed electronic clinical record solution will provide comprehensive, accurate patient information at the point of care for patients treated at the Centre. The IMS MAXIMS Spinal Injuries system will handle patients admitted from A&E Departments, Intensive Treatment Units, individual orthopaedic surgeons and neurologists, or from any hospital within the catchments area and supports care across a wide range of departments and associated professionals. Services provided by the Spinal Cord Injuries Centre include: lifelong care to cord injury patients including an annual review plus services in; fertility, urology, gynaecology, osteoporosis, pressure mapping, home ventilation, orthodontics, plastic surgery, psychiatry, psychology, dietetics, speech and language therapy. The new system from IMS MAXIMS will allow patient data from theatres, pathology tests, x-rays and all clinical interventions to be recorded and provides a complete audit of each interaction. Professor Greenough, consultant orthopaedic and spinal surgeon, and clinical director of the unit, commented: “Patients with spinal injuries need life long care. We needed a system that could give us access to clinical notes not only within our diverse treatment facilities throughout the hospital, but also in outpatient clinics, at outreach drop-in centres or even in patient homes.” Professor Greenough continued: “Electronic patient records are crucial for our multidisciplinary, multi-location teams, as paper notes can only be in one place at one time.” Joanne Dewar, Director of Information at South Tees NHS Trust, added: “While the system will undoubtedly underpin the work of our extensive therapy and rehabilitation departments, it will also help us to research the most effective treatment regimes and to implement best spinal injuries care practices for all our patients across the region. Dewar added that the system will comply with any detailed ICRS specification the government may eventually announce, but had been procured ahead of ICRS becoming available because "…our needs are urgent now.” IMS MAXIMS will install 52 workstations, including 10 wireless laptops for use in remote locations and at the bedside. The laptops remove the need for transcription of paper notes into ‘centralised’ computers. Details of the value of the contract were not disclosed.
