Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust is rolling out its Paris electronic patient record system, with mobile access as a key part of the deployment.
The trust’s children’s community nursing teams in Bury, Oldham and Rochdale are the first to use the Civica system, and have been given tablet devices to gain mobile access.
A spokesperson from the trust told EHI this means staff will not have to return to base to update records, freeing up more time to deliver patient care.
“The trust plans to issue mobile devices to all community-based services approximately eight weeks ahead of their move to Paris. Deployment of devices to the second cohort is underway,” the spokesperson said.
“This is as part of the trust’s overall mobile working programme, to ensure staff have access to information at the point of care.”
Pennine Care was once due to be the first mental health ‘early adopter’ of Lorenzo under the National Programme for IT, but withdrew in May 2011.
It subsequently joined the North West clinical information systems framework, which was led by NHS Shared Business Services to secure new systems for seven mental health organisations.
It then ran a mini-competition to find a ‘fit for purpose’ system before becoming the first framework trust to award a contract in January 2013, choosing the Civica system.
The spokesperson said that a lot of work has gone into preparing and planning the deployment of the EPR, which will take two years to complete.
“All clinical services across the trust will be migrated to Paris, which means there will be a continuous roll-out plan over the next two years,” they said.
“The next cohort to go-live will be on a much larger scale of approximately 900 staff from both community and mental health services. Preliminary work on systems and processes is already underway in preparation.”
The modules of the system already live include: referrals; waiting lists; case loads; care documentation; progress notes; appointment bookings; clinical letters and operational and statutory reports.
Future modules include: mental health clustering; case note tracking; Mental Health Act administration; inpatients and clinical coding.
“Paris will enable clinicians to have faster access to care records and more opportunities to share information and integrate care delivery,” said the spokesperson.
“It will provide new paper-light ways of working and less duplication. Ultimately, Paris will support an improved patient experience.”
The trust has recently started an integration work stream and plan to integrate with other systems sometime in 2014.