South trusts move forward with SmartCare

Three acute trusts in the South Local Clinical Systems programme are moving ahead with implementation plans for InterSystems’ TrakCare, starting later this year.

The collaboration of Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust and Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust announced last May that it had chosen InterSystems from a shortlist of three suppliers.

The three trusts are now planning to go-live at similar times in a staggered roll-out, with Yeovil the leading trust.

Dr Tony Smith, Yeovil’s medical lead for IT, told EHI News that InterSystems emerged as the best choice following a “very fair and thorough procurement process”, including a ‘virtual hospital’ project to test the capabilities of each system in realistic scenarios.

Dr Smith said his trust currently uses a range of standalone systems, but it and the others wanted to implement a system “that has them all under one roof.”

“In terms of cross-functionality intelligence, such as knowing that you’re prescribing to a patient with an abnormal blood result so you need to adjust the dose, that’s where the real benefits are.”

Dr Smith said the trust would undertake a phased roll-out rather than a big bang, starting by replacing systems already in use and then moving onto new systems.

Dr Frank Harsent, Gloucestershire’s chief executive, said the EPR “represents the biggest single investment, and the most transformational change that we have ever committed to at our trust.

“Overall, the new system will make life simpler and safer for staff and patients and enable us to deliver the highest standards of healthcare.”

Mike Jones, Northern Devon’s programme director, said: “It is a watershed moment for us and we look forward to the next two years as we aim for a fully integrated care record across all our services that is part of a wider Devon-wide care record programme.”

The grouping is one of six collaborations involving 23 acute trusts in the South that received little or nothing from the National Programme for IT in the NHS. The collaborations were formed to buy a variety of IT systems with central funding support.

The SmartCare group was the first to pick a supplier. Its original tender requested a clinical information system to be delivered on a “remotely hosted, managed services basis” for up to ten years, with a cost between £35m and £60m for all three trusts.

The system will include a patient administration system, order communications, e-prescribing, clinical decision support, A&E, theatres, pathology, pharmacy and stock control, and clinical documentation.

The TrakCare system is widely used in Scotland, where it covers 70% of the population, and is in place at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases NHS Foundation Trust.

 However, it did not have a major English EPR site until February 2014, when North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust announced that it had chosen InterSystems as a preferred bidder.