Birmingham Community Healthcare uses ‘test bed’ approach with new EPR

Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has gone live with an electronic patient record in one of its wards as part of a ‘test bed’ launch.

Ward 5 at Moseley Hall Hospital is the first inpatient facility to trial the new electronic system for recording and accessing patient information within the trust. Thanks to the electronic patient record (EPR) launch, Ward 5 will achieve the trust’s ambition for ‘paper-light’ wards.

Its medicines administration will now be the sole paper-based record keeping system. However, this is set to change next year, as 2022 will see the launch of the electronic and prescribing and medicines administration system at the trust.

Clinical staff based on Ward 5 will work in partnership with digital technology services and the information governance team at the trust to help refine the EPR ahead of a launch across all inpatient areas at Birmingham Community Healthcare.

Ben Richards, adult and specialist rehabilitation divisional director, said: “We’re so pleased to have finally launched the electronic patient record in Ward 5. Getting to this stage has been the result of really good engagement from all the nurses, doctors, therapists and other members of the inpatient teams who have worked really hard in collaboration with the colleagues handling the technical and governance side of it.

“It’s a big step closer to achieving our mission of ensuring that the right information is readily available by the right clinician at the right time at the point of care at all times.”

The EPR is provided by RiO and forms a key element of the long-planned for introduction of shared care records for Birmingham and Solihull. There are also development plans in the pipeline for the EPR system. In the future it is hoped that it would be accessible in community settings, as well as by patients and their designated relatives via a patient portal.