Sussex Partnership and Enovacom team up for interoperability project

Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust has teamed up with Enovacom to develop a new electronic prescribing system which aims to widen staff access to critical healthcare data.

The partnership will see Enovacom’s Integration Engine being used to connect with the mental health trust’s new Civica electronic prescribing management administration (ePMA) system with its Advanced Carenotes EPR, ensuring the trust can share data between the systems.

This means Sussex Partnership will be able to fully implement a prescribing system in time for the 2022 deadline set as part of its membership of the NHS Global Digital Exemplar (GDE) scheme.

Sussex Partnership is a provider of mental health and learning disability services for people living in south east England and is a Fast Follower on the GDE programme with fellow Enovacom customer Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust.

Sussex rapidly expanded their use of virtual consultations during the Covid-19 pandemic and are now looking to create infrastructure to enable more of their staff to work flexibly. Innovations include a staff app, increased use of virtual private networks and a digital recovery college.

Gurprit Pannu, chief digital information officer at the trust, said: “Interoperability is a key priority for the trust as we look to pursue a digitisation strategy that aims to improve care, treatment and efficiency. Greater data sharing will enable us to share records securely with other partners and provide tools that support a more flexible workforce.”

Sussex are following in the footsteps of Hertfordshire Partnership Trust, who embarked on an interoperability journey using the same technology from Enovacom earlier this year.

Mark Smith, UK business development director at Enovacom, added: “By working with Sussex, Oxford and Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, we are seeing the importance of interoperability in helping the NHS’ aims to deliver What Good Looks Like for health IT.

“These more mature digital mental health trusts, through their active engagement with the GDE Programme, are part of a growing community of Enovacom users who leverage our interoperability systems and expertise to help deliver more integrated, person-centred care.”