Royal Derby Hospital, part of the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust has started its e-prescribing and medicines administration journey with DXC Technology’s Lorenzo.
The initiative is part of the Trust wider digital programme that will better alert doctors to genuine prescribing dangers, electronically link patient information and best practice to prescribing decisions, and improve patient safety whilst reducing pressure on staff.
Matt Elliott, Pharmacist, University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust “This is about helping to guide prescribers – giving them suggestions based on the best practice, the latest drug prices, clinical guidance, prescribing policy and the context of a patient’s history. Our staff are already familiar with the typical benefits of electronic prescribing – such as having access to information in different locations, legibility or being alerted to patient allergies.”
“We now want to go much further with Lorenzo, pre-populating the system with common doses and using relevant linguistics so prescriptions can be issued quickly and easily. Linking to the EPR will mean prescribers have drug orders, lab tests, drug administration and patient information all in one place and they can benefit from proactive suggestions for patients with specific conditions and comorbidities.”
Debbie Loke, deputy chief information officer at the trust, said: “Enabling safer, faster and more informed prescribing for busy doctors and nurses and the patients they look after is a core ambition in our transition to Lorenzo ePMA. Unlike most hospitals embarking on digitisation programmes with the Lorenzo EPR, electronic prescribing is not new for us. However, staff will benefit from a much more intuitive, mature and connected system, configured around their workflow. This will better guide their decisions and alert them to real risks.”
Dr Sam Thacker, associate clinical informatics officer “We can stratify alerts in Lorenzo and manage them so the most dangerous and more uncommon things are more likely to interrupt users’ work than the more common and benign. We haven’t had the ability to do that before. Now something minor will show as text, whereas if a prescriber presses ‘OK’ on something potentially fatal – they have to enter a reason. That is a big improvement.”
“Additional safeguards will bring us down the road of better safety – with fewer errors. We can help to ensure harm is minimised and that any causes are recognised. This is something Lorenzo will help us to realise.”
The deployment has started at Derbyshire Children’s Hospital and will extend to all inpatient areas in Derby, replacing an outdated electronic prescribing system.
