On Saturday 9 July, the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS FT went live with their new electronic patient record across its Northern Devon sites.
In 2020 the trust’s eastern services went live with the Epic electronic patient record system, under the name MY CARE, and now all sites across the trust operate on a single patient record.
To support the go-live the trust trained over 650 clinical and administrative super users and placed a number of safeguarding measures to support a successful go-live, such as going live at 2am.
Suzanne Tracey, Chief Executive Officer at the Royal Devon, commented on the launch: “Going live across our northern services will change the way we deliver care to our local communities, better connecting people and information, so that regardless of where patients are seen or which clinical teams they meet, our staff will be able to access their record quickly and efficiently.
“Epic has already helped us to improve the experience for staff, patients and carers across Eastern Devon, and we are really excited about the difference it will make in Northern Devon too.
“Our digital portal, MY CARE, provides patients or someone they nominate with the ability to view their own care record anywhere and at any time via a smart device. This means that patients will have secure, online access to parts of their medical record, including lists of hospital medication and upcoming hospital appointments. Across Eastern Devon, MY CARE supports people to take more control of their healthcare at just the click of a button, and we’re delighted that the people of Northern Devon will soon be able to benefit from this too.
“I’d like to reassure people that paper communications will still be available for patients who might be concerned about using new technology, or who don’t have access to a smart device.
“As a newly formed organisation, we have an ambition to be a leading, digitally-enabled teaching hospital trust. Rolling out Epic across our Northern services takes us a step further on that journey and we’re incredibly proud of all the work our colleagues have done to get us to this important milestone.”
We're live! Epic has launched in Northern Devon and we are now operating one shared patient record across our Northern and Eastern services. Our CMO, Adrian Harris, has recorded a message to mark this fantastic milestone! pic.twitter.com/0JT3CqXjJS
— Royal Devon NHS (@RoyalDevonNHS) July 9, 2022
In October 2020, HTN reported on the go live at Royal Devon & Exeter NHS FT, and David Kwo, an EPR consultant and researcher, shared with us a first-hand account of the EPR implementation and go-live at the time.
