Sunderland Royal Hospital has achieved HIMSS Level 7, the highest international quality standard for the use of technology.
In February 2020, Sunderland Royal Hospital joined the Global Digital Exemplar programme, and following a two day virtual assessment held on Monday 7 and Tuesday 8 December 2020, HIMSS assessors awarded Sunderland Royal the highest attainable accreditation, Level 7.
The trust said the achievement follows many years of investment in technology and comes from years of the trust’s leadership recognising the role of technology in delivering safe and effective care.
The trust uses the Meditech Electronic Patient Record (EPR), which also integrates with the Great North Care Record, Health Information Exchange, to support information sharing with healthcare settings across the North East and North Cumbria.
Dr Kevin Joisce, Consultant in Emergency Medicine and Chief Clinical Information Officer at South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS FT, said: “Using the most up-to-date and advanced digital systems is as part and parcel of our ethos and how we want to deliver patient care and to achieve Level 7 accreditation reflects the digital maturity of our Trust.”
“Technology is embedded in everything we do, in all clinical processes and our nursing workflows to an extent where we have successfully eliminated our reliance on historic paper-based systems at Sunderland Royal Hospital.”
“Our Board have long championed the use technology with a clear and ongoing commitment to improve patient safety and the overall quality of clinical care through the effective use and deployment of digital solutions. This is an important milestone for the organisation and one that we will continue to build upon in the years ahead.”
Andy Hart is Director of Information Management and Technology at South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS FT, added: “Embracing technology has long been at the heart of our strategic thinking and a tremendous amount of work has taken place by all of our clinical teams to reach this important milestone for Sunderland Royal Hospital and for the NHS as a whole.”
“Having joined up and highly effective IT systems in the NHS is by no means an easy feat but it is a fundamental enabler to delivering excellent patient care. There is no doubt that our Meditech solution has greatly enhanced patient safety, outcomes and the quality of patient care, as well as improving organisational efficiency.”
