The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust has signed a 10-year contract for an EPR system with System C designed to support integration with partner trust Walsall Healthcare, along with enabling integration with other services provided by the same supplier across Black Country ICS.
The roll-out of the new system will involve two phases, with the first stage beginning this month and focusing on the trust’s legacy patient administration system, emergency department and theatre systems. Remaining functionality will be followed out in the second stage, including CareFlow planning, clinical workspace, patient flow and personal health records.
Nick Bruce, group director of digital technology at the two trusts, comments that System C’s CareFlow EPR was chosen for its “comprehensive functionality, modern user interface, and advanced clinical capabilities.”
He adds that “in order to accelerate our digital maturity, the trust needed a strategic and reputable solution, which is scalable through a cloud-based roadmap, and aligns with our own digital plans for the next five to ten years. By choosing System C, we will be supporting our convergence ambitions across the region by enabling integration with neighbouring trusts and the system’s shared care record, One Health and Care.”
Professor David Loughton, group CEO, calls the partnership “a very exciting development for the trust as we accelerate our digital transformation. Like any major investment, it’s driven by improving the quality of our care and outcomes for our patients. We already have a strong working relationship with System C, and this new EPR will play a key role in supporting our staff to deliver high-quality, joined-up care for our patients”.
System C notes that through CareFlow, referrals are supported between different organisations through their Affiliated Networks feature, which enables providers across acute, community and primary care to use CareFlow Connect in order to create ‘affiliations’ with each other and as such exchange dialogue, handovers, task management and more.
Last year, we reported on the joint five-year strategy from RWT and Walsall Healthcare, including four strategic aims around delivery of care, supporting colleagues, collaboration, and improving health and wellbeing for communities.
In October, we shared how University Hospitals of Derby and Burton and Chesterfield Royal Hospital had named their preferred EPR supplier, with Derby and Burton’s executive chief digital information officer William Monaghan discussing his trust’s approach to digital including EPR procurement in our interview here.
