Hereford hospitals go live with electronic patient records

The system will allow doctors to access electronic records

Hereford Hospitals Trust has successfully gone live with the Lorenzo patient record software system.

The trust went live at the start of September with the first release of the software in its rheumatology department.

Alison Budd, the trust's medical director, said: “Rheumatology volunteered to pilot this as they saw the opportunities for enhancing their already excellent clinical service with improved documentation.

"This content developed in conjunction with the Hereford team is now available for other trusts using Lorenzo also."

The software was implemented by CSC, which is responsible for the North, Midlands and East regions of the NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT). It is the first deployment of the software beyond the initial three designated “early adopter” sites.

More than 220,000 patient records were successfully migrated across from the existing system. The trust is now looking to roll the system out in other clinical areas.

Earlier this year, Christine Connelly, NHS director general of informatics, told local service providers in the NPfIT that they had to make significant progress with software implementations before the end of the year.