Lancs NHS digitises patient records

Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is spending £8.3m on a nine-year project to modernise IT systems and replace paper case notes with electronic patient records (EPR).

The plan will bring the trust in line with government targets for all hospitals to have EPR by 2005.

The first phase will replace the Trust's disparate systems with a single integrated administration system linked to radiology, accident & emergency and theatre. The technology will be rolled out across the Trust and into wards by early 2004.

Denise Whittaker, IT director at the Trust, said: "On the first visit to an outpatient department there is normally a copy of the patient's case notes and a clinician fills in what happens at that appointment.

"With the new system the record will have been scanned in, so the clinician will add any information electronically. When the patient goes on to the ward, the clinicians can look up all the information automatically."

Phase two, which should be live by early 2005, will allow doctors on wards to order tests such as pathology and x-rays, and receive on-screen results automatically. Mobile devices will bring the information to the bedside, according to Whittaker.

"Phase two will mean changing working practices. Clinicians will access up-to-date information in real time [using] an integrated IT system rather than a series of case notes, paper orders and telephone calls," she said.

Phase three, scheduled to go live at the beginning of 2006, is an integrated electronic prescribing system, including automatic alerts to warn doctors of allergies or incompatible medicines.

"Once information is electronic you can access it wherever you are, so clinicians will be able to make decisions more quickly and data quality and patient care will be improved," said Whittaker.