South Tees goes live with electronic prescribing and medication system

South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has gone live with an electronic prescribing and medication administration (ePMA) system from Better. 

Its deployment to inpatient and outpatients areas is the next step of the trust’s modular electronic patient record (EPR) programme with Alicidion. The ePMA fully integrates with Alicidion’s EPR, Miya Precision, which the trust deployed at the end of last year.

The aim of implementing an ePMA is to remove paper forms and manual processes as well as supporting safe prescribing decisions.

As a result of having the ePMA, South Tees will have an improved audit trail of every medication dose administered, this means staff can have access to easier visibility of when patients are due their medication. As well as monitoring when medication is due, the system will also provide trend analysis enabling staff to easily identify potential issues early on so swift action can be taken.

In addition, codified data will support South Tees in its financial reporting. This will enable it to more easily link medicines to specific patients, allowing it to reclaim money which can be then be reinvested into patient care.

Daniel Pugh, a senior informatics pharmacy technician for South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Integrating electronic prescribing into our Alcidion EPR, joins up drug information with patient assessments, allergies, lab results, vital signs and more.

“This provides a safety barrier that will help prescribers make better informed decisions for patients. It will also save valuable time for clinicians, for example, through easy access to standardised order sets and the ability to prescribe from anywhere.”

The implementation of the ePMA also marks an important stay on South Tees’ journey through the HIMSS Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model.

Roko Malkoč, business unit director, Better Meds, added: “South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has shown high digital transformation maturity, resulting from the excellent internal alignment driven by an experienced team. We believe that collaboration with Alcidion in the trust will bring direct benefits with real-time access to all healthcare data for caregivers.”