Maternity EHR gets ‘big bang’ launch

Southport and Ormskirk Hospitals NHS Trust has gone live with Medway Maternity in a 'big bang' approach across two maternity units.

Its acute hospital maternity units went live with the system last month, while the trust has also deployed the Medway Maternity off-line community module. This allows community midwives to collect and update data in pre-populated forms and sync the information later, contributing to an integrated maternity record.

More than 300 staff are using the software, working in a range of clinics and assessment units, delivery suites, wards and remotely in the community.

System C said in a statement that within the first three days of go-live, its Medway Maternity system had been used for more than 500 antenatal assessments, 75 postnatal assessments and nearly 20 deliveries, many of which were in the community.

The trust’s head of IT, Matt Connor, said the deployment had been very smooth and clinical feedback so far has been very positive. IT project midwives, Rebecca Owens and Joanne Unsworth, said the ability for community  midwives to upload assessments without having to return to a base had reduced travelling time, giving them more time to spend with patients.

Midwives are also able to record telephone assessments directly onto the system in real time and to track the number of calls a woman makes in a defined period of time; so they can tailor their advice appropriately.

In the delivery suite, midwives input information at the bedside using wall-mounted computers, meaning the new mother is not left unattended while they return to the nurses’ station computer.

Markus Bolton, joint chief executive of System C, said the company has worked hard at integrating its acute and community solutions and making them easy to use.

Southport first went live with the Medway patient administration system in October 2014 after running the McKesson Totalcare system for 25 years.