Countess of Chester selects Ideal firm to implement EPR programme

Countess of Chester NHS Foundation Trust has appointed Ideal Health to implement its new electronic patient record programme.

The programme, EPR+, is using Cerner Millennium electronic patient record (EPR) and includes accident and emergency, anaesthetics, maternity, critical care and medications management.

The end-to-end service provided by digital health consultancy firm Ideal encompasses programme management, technical and clinical workstreams, change and benefits management, testing, training, integration and cutover services, a statement from the trust said.

Cara Williams, chief digital information officer at the trust, said: “As we are embarking on the implementation of our EPR+ programme, the trust needed to find a partner who we were confident could help us successfully deliver the system.

“Ideal Health demonstrated an approach which married up to our requirements and we are looking forward to working with them.”

The programme is expected to last nine months with a go live of EPR+ planned for the second quarter of 2021.

Chris Brimble, chief executive Ideal Health, added: “We are proud to partner with Countess of Chester and we are looking forward to utilising our experience to deliver a complete implementation programme for EPR+.

“By taking the approach of using our comprehensive implementation service, we’re confident that Countess of Chester will have a successful experience and realise their ambitions of being a leader in utilising digital health to support care delivery.”

Countess of Chester signed a 15-year deal to implement the Cerner Millennium EPR system in 2018.

It will replace the Meditech EPR that has been in use at the trust since 1999. Meditech’s contract expired in November 2019.