Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust has formally announced that it will become the first NHS mental health provider in England to adopt CareDirector as its electronic patient record (EPR) system.
CareDirector, developed by Dublin-based health IT firm CareWorks, replaces the Civica Paris EPR that has been in use at the trust since 2011.
Digital Health News reported in June that the £3m contract will run for seven years and carries the option of being extended for an additional three.
Dr Claire Kenwood, medical director at Leeds and York Partnership, said: “We are really pleased to be able to make this announcement. It represents the end of a long and detailed search to find the right electronic patient record system to meet our ambitions for the future.
“Colleagues have invested lots of time and energy in looking for the right product. We needed a system which would link into the Leeds Care Record and other systems like electronic prescribing; could offer fully mobile working and offer workflow prompts to help make sure important steps in care processes are met.”
Leeds and York Partnership is a main provider of specialist mental health and learning disability services in Leeds.
It has an annual turnover of £153m and around 2,600 staff members.
To minimise disruption to operations, the trust will fully deploy CareDirector in 2020 after a two-year preparation period. During this time, CareWorks will support the training of all members of staff using the system so that they are prepared for the changeover.
Dr Nick Venters, clinical lead for the project, said the new EPR would “drive up the quality of the services and care [the trust] can deliver.”
Venters added: “We’re already looking at our working practices in detail and beginning to scope what we do, how we do it and how we can better align different services.
“This will help us harness the flexibility of CareDirector to create more effective work and information flows.”
CareWorks CEO Michael Dolan said the company would work with Leeds and York Partnership to “to help them achieve the ambitious goals they’ve set for the future.”
29 July 2018 @ 19:31
Gotta agree Geoff. Designing a competitive tendering process is really useful as a mechanism to look at your own organisation as well as the suppliers. Makes you think about your priorities.
24 July 2018 @ 10:29
Well done to all involved. Very interested to hear how the deployment proceeds and the benefits that this new approach will bring to patients and the Trust
23 July 2018 @ 20:28
This is an interesting development, it’s about time we had a new player in the mental health marketplace in England. There is a real opportunity to shake things up a bit… let’s hope they can make the most of it! It would be good for the market as a whole and will hopefully inspire other vendors to continue to raise their game
25 July 2018 @ 14:13
Very well put James – I would say that for any MH Trust out there running a process like this will almost certainly save them money even if they decide to keep their existing system – seriously!