Whittington Health NHS Trust has highlighted progress on its infrastructure, including moving its EPR to the cloud and network improvements to improve security and control.
The trust is migrating its Rio EPR system to a cloud-hosted environment, with an aim to improve timeliness and performance of community reporting and dashboards, whilst providing a scalable foundation for community analytics. Moving electronic patient records to the cloud is also anticipated to improve security and allow for faster access to data, the trust adds.
Over the past year a number of improvements have been made to infrastructure, the trust shares, including a transition of network infrastructure from Xtreme Networks to Cisco to support future growth, and the implementation of a new solution to back up IT systems and data, with cloud storage and cyber protection. MS Sentinel SIEM has been rolled out with hopes of improving cyber protection, and network access control measures have been enabled across all community sites.
For data and information, progress has covered the development of a new Power BI dashboard to support monitoring of ambulatory emergency care activity, said to offer better visibility of same-day emergency care pathways, admission avoidance, and service performance, Whittington Health notes. A theatre management system has been introduced, and a theatres Power BI dashboard redeveloped to include data on theatre productivity, utilisation, delays, and trends. The system more closely integrates with the Careflow EPR, said to support booking workflows and digitise WHO safety checklists, it adds.
From a patient perspective, Whittington Health outlines patient portal functionality across appointment viewing in a personalised digital calendar, and an achievement of more than 99 percent digitalisation of outpatient clinic letters, estimated to save the trust £80,000 per year. Further plans are for patient portal functionality to be extended to allow patients to cancel or reschedule appointments, it notes.
Wider trend: EPR
An EPR tool offering a calculator and clinical decision support for safer medicines management is to launch at Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust on 1 September. The Anticholinergic Medication Index (ACMI) tool aims to support prescribers and pharmacists assess patient anticholinergic burden in patients aged 65 and over in inpatient and day case settings. Integrated directly into the EPR, the trust shares that the tool has the capability to automatically update ACMI scores when an anticholinergic medication is prescribed or changed, using a scoring system based on 88 “commonly prescribed” medicines.
Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust has highlighted a targeted EPR tender publication in September, ahead of business case approval in 2027, as well progress on ambient voice pilots and its patient portal programme. The partnership has held future EPR stakeholder sessions with outcomes to inform its EPR specification, the board indicates, with tender publication expected around September or October 2026. Full tender evaluation is then scheduled for November to December, before hopes for full business case approval in January 2027.
Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust has published its digital strategy to 2031, highlighting plans for an EPR go-live in 2027, the roll out of ambient voice technology, AI-assisted diagnosis, and automation. Over the last five years, significant upgrades have been made to core network infrastructure, along with investments in cyber security, and the introduction of clinical systems such as EPMA, bed management, and a new patient portal with NHS App connectivity, the trust shares. “However, we are not where we want to be,” it continues. “There are ongoing frustrations: incomplete EPR functionality, technical debt, and a division between community and acute in terms of EPR.”
