Bolton NHS Foundation Trust has this week signed a major contract to provide enhanced digital solutions to improve patient care and outcomes. The £30million project sees the Trust work with Allscripts Sunrise Electronic Patient Record (EPR) to implement an electronic record of every aspect of a patient’s care.
Currently different departments collate their records separately, though this investment will allow the Trust to develop an electronic health record for patients who have treatment at Royal Bolton Hospital or with our healthcare professionals in the community.
Work will begin on the new system next month, and it is expected that the first phase will go-live in spring 2019. The new system will introduce a number of benefits to patients and staff, including:
- A full history of a patient’s care.
- More accurate communication between healthcare professionals, patients and carers.
- Reduced clinical risk by ensuring clinical records are available, accurate, up-to-date and complete when the patient is receiving care.
Some neighbouring trusts already use Allscripts and by implementing it in Bolton, this is the first step in a shared record of a patient’s care in the North West sector of Greater Manchester.
Ken Bradshaw, Deputy Chief Informatics Officer at the Trust said: “Signing this contract is the result of months of hard work behind the scenes preparing our systems and teams for this investment. We’re delighted to be at the point where we can start to progress the project and reap the benefits it will be bring for our patients.
“The new technology will provide a seamless process, and make it so much easier for our clinicians to access a single, detailed and up-to-date view of a patient’s health record.”
