Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust is celebrating the successful launch of phase two of its Nervecentre EPR, “significantly” expanding its functionality and moving forward with hopes of realising “safer” and “more coordinated” care.
The phase two launch incorporates urgent and emergency care, and allows clinical documentation, internal referrals, bed management, and e-observations to be completed within the EPR.
Clinicians are also now able to access patient history and prior correspondence, with the trust highlighting the potential for this to allow faster decision-making on patient care. Training sessions, readiness exercises, and collaboration between clinical, operational, and digital teams were key to ensuring the safe introduction of the system, the trust shares.
Harrogate and District NHS offered an update on phase one go-live earlier this year, stating: “EPR is live and continues to be rolled out with positive signs. First tranche of EPR had launched on Wednesday 19 November and the launch had gone very well with the level of engagement well received.”
The initial launch covered e-observations and clinical photography, with patient investigations functionality following shortly after in December in a move the trust says has “allowed test results to be viewed and filed in the same system, reducing duplication and saving valuable time”.
Jacqueline Andrews, HDFT’s executive medical director and executive lead for digital, said: “This is one of the most significant transformations in the way we deliver and record care we have undertaken at HDFT. The new EPR will help us document more consistently, access information more quickly and make safer decisions at every stage of the patient journey…The go‑live is a really positive step forward for our clinical teams and our patients and will make a real difference in the day‑to‑day care we can provide.”
Wider trend: EPR
An invitation to tender has been published by the Falkland Islands Government Office, looking for potential suppliers for a territory-wide electronic patient record system. The contract has not yet been assigned an estimated value, but is set to run from 1 October 2026 to 31 December 2031, for a period of five years. According to the notice, the solution will be used by multi-disciplinary clinical teams situated within the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital and community settings.
Judy Faulkner, Epic founder and CEO, has shared insights into Epic’s almost 50-year journey in the electronic health records space, in a YouTube interview with journalist and author Katie Couric. Beginning by talking about her background and her discovery of coding in the early days of the computer, Faulkner shares the story of being asked to develop a system capable of tracking patient clinical information over time as part of an assignment, and how being one of the only women in that space at the time ended up being an advantage.
Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust has awarded a ten-year EPR contract with a value of £52 million to Epic, taking the trust up to 2036. The trust’s board in its January meeting covered the board assurance framework, noting issues with IT infrastructure, digital maturity, and technical debt. “Lewisham and Greenwich NHS has had a phased roll out over several years of its existing EPR system which has left the trust with a partially deployed EPR for acute services and a separate community EPR with only 80 percent of our clinical systems integrated and linked to the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Patient Master Index,” it stated.
