Cancer care staff at the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust should be able to access electronic medical records for all patients by Christmas.
The trust use Impac’s Electonic Medical Record (EMR) software, delivered by Elekta, to create and keep a full electronic record of every cancer patient that visits one of their clinics.
First implemented in January, in the Oncology department of the Arden Cancer Centre, the system has been slowly deployed into further sections of the centre, the latest being the palliative care team, with the aim of eventually serving over 1.3m cancer patients each year.
Arden’s technical superintendent radiographer, Bill Kelly, told EHI Primary Care: “The system has been a massive boost for our centre. It means that across the trust we can share a Master Patient Index, so we have one single common set across the trust for a dedicated group of 400 users.
“Working alongside the trust’s iPM, we are providing authorised users to have free access to view any information they want and track important parameters to make decision making that much easier. There is no longer a huge paper chase mission to go on.”
Impac EMR helps improve overall treatment and practice management across the spectrum of cancer care by streamlining diagnostic and treatment information, charge capture and billing, and scheduling information into a patient chart that is instantly accessible from remote locations by hospital staff.
Kelly added: “The system has made workflow so much easier for us, bookings can be made through direct interaction with the system, we can easily extract reporting data to show we are meeting targets, and we are even using it to submit reports to the Cancer Registry. It makes the most complex work on paper, so much more easy in normal time slots.
“Through its streamlined approach, we can see patients as soon as we know they are due to come in for chemotherapy or radiotherapy, and through the paperless way of working, the trust has seen big savings through a cut down on printing costs, and inter-departmental communication phone calls.”
The system is currently unable to integrate with PACS but does support DICOM based pathology systems and is accessible from mobile devices, making it possible for clinicians to update the EMR at the patient’s bedside.
Sarah Grant, Macmillan specialist palliative care nurse at the trust, said: “We are already seeing a dramatic improvement in our ability to capture service activity, with recordable statistics and transferable documentation. This will be hugely beneficial for Service Review, Annual Reports and National data requirements, whilst also providing on-line information for other health care professionals involved with our patients.”
Elekta’s software sales manager, Liz Harris, told EHI: “The system allows clinicians to have a full EMR system for monitoring progress of cancer patients trust-wide. It has the capability to improve throughput and activity, as has been demonstrated here, and has caught the attention of other trusts including Guys and St Thomas’ and Southampton General hospital.”
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