Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has partnered with Nervecentre to further develop the Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration from the company.
In 2019 the trust secured national funding to deploy an Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration solution and chose to deploy the technology from Nervecentre. The new partnership announced this week will see a collaborative approach to enhance the EPMA solution.
Morgan Thanigasalam, Clinical Lead for Digital Innovation and Transformation said “This excellent news is the result of a huge amount of work by medical, nursing, pharmacy, Allied Health Professional, NHIS, finance and procurement colleagues – my personal thanks to them all, especially as it is not always clear how much effort goes into getting to this point.”
“Especially pleasing is the fact that Nervecentre want to work with us in developing their product both in terms of EPMA and how it links with what we already use – leading to further improvements in patient safety and care as well as supporting the experience of clinicians.”
The trust is currently using the technology from Nervecentre for Electronic Observations, Patient Flow, and Hospital at Night; integrating the system within its current infrastructure.
David Selwyn, Medical Director at SFH said “Our clinical colleagues told us that the number one clinical priority for them was moving towards an electronic prescribing system; EPMA. Therefore, this contract award to Nervecentre is fantastic news as it supports our drive to improve patients’ safety within our organisation.”
“At the same time, an EPMA will help all our clinical staff in their day to day work and is a key component of achieving our vision of healthier communities and outstanding care for our patients and local community.”
The partnership is part of the newly launched digital strategy at the trust that we heard about as part of HTN Digital Week June 2020. Morgan presented the new strategy and the journey to get there which started with wide stakeholder research and engagement.
“We asked our colleagues and internal stakeholders to prioritise ten key themes of digitisation to improve patient care.”
The ten priorities that came back were: Speed and performance of connectivity, a move towards EPR, replacing IT equipment that is becoming out of date, reduce the number of system logins, more portable equipment for frontline staff, collaboration to share information across the region, improving trust intranet, improving internal communications, more electronic communication with patients, and more training and development.
“We need to make sure we have the right tools and right skills to support our patients and colleagues. It is about building on progress we’ve made over recent years in a more widespread way.”
“Digital strategy needs regular evaluation where there is no such thing as too much engagement, there are risks whatever you do or don’t do – focus on what is right for your organisation.”
“Also, there are costs whatever you do or don’t do, decisions have to be right for your organisation. Finally, make sure you involve and invest in people!”
Watch the session here:
