Grimsby hospital has today gone live with its electronic prescribing and medicines administration (EPMA) system on its Amethyst Ward and its Stroke Unit.
The hospital becomes the third and final of Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust’s EPMA programme, following the system going live at Goole hospital in October 2019, and Scunthorpe hospital in February 2020.
The trust secured £940,000 national funding to deploy EPMA, as part of a Government drive to ensure paperless prescribing, supported by £78 million in funding.
500 healthcare professionals were trained on the system, following months of planning, and the official release of the system took place on its Amethyst Ward, a haematology, oncology and rheumatology unit, and the Stroke Unit. Other wards will start using the system in the following weeks.
Dr Alexander Broadbent, speciality trainee, was one of the first to use the system. He said: “It’s great to see EPMA rolling out at Grimsby and I’m looking forward to getting to grips with it. I’ve worked at other hospitals in the area that use similar systems and the main benefit is that it will reduce the chance of any transcription errors.”
Paulash Haider, assistant chief pharmacist, added: “We’re so pleased to finally be bringing the technology to Grimsby. We’re already seeing the benefits at Goole and Scunthorpe where staff have embraced the new way of working. We’ve seen fewer prescribing and administering errors as a result and increased staff productivity as staff don’t need to search for paper charts.
“We’ve got a lot of wards to get through so the rollout will continue ward by ward over the next few months but it’s great to see that staff on our two go live wards are already getting to grips with the system and handwritten prescriptions will soon become a thing of the past.”
