The board of directors of York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals has discussed its use of ambient voice technology, Copilot, and the next phase of the EPR.
The trust reported the successful delivery of the second tranche of its EPR programme at the beginning of October, following initial go-live of its Nervecentre EPR in May. Functionality introduced across the two initial tranches includes observations and clinical documentation for inpatients; urgent and emergency care; pathology and radiology investigations and results for inpatients and UEC; ePMA; and bed management.
Tranche three is expected to go live in June 2027, and will cover PAS, theatres, endoscopy, medical device integration, e-consent, and outpatient use of clinical documentation, ePMA, and investigations. Work is underway on planning for build and test phases, the trust shares, and there is a key focus on preparedness for data migration to ensure that data migrated will pass quality checks.
Focus is now moving to benefits realisation, according to the board, with EPR functionality intended to support patient flow and bed management, more coordinated outpatient and diagnostic pathways, and improved access to information and staff experience. It continues: “However, implementation of the functionality alone does not demonstrate that these benefits have been realised. Continued assurance will therefore need to draw increasingly on adoption data, operational outcomes and validated productivity and financial benefits.”
Work is ongoing on training, digital readiness, clinical engagement, digital champion support, and service-level adoption monitoring to support sustained adoption and use of the system, the board notes. An implementation plan is now to be drawn up for Patientcentre, alongside tranche three.
Elsewhere, the trust highlights its continued roll out of AVT, with the technology on the Nervecentre platform to be rolled out in same day emergency care, it goes on, and an investment agreement with NHSE for funding to expand the use of AVT is being finalised.
The number of trust licences for Microsoft Copilot has also been increased to 4,000. Governance around AI is being established, the trust assures, and an AI and Data Ethics committee has been created to oversee new uses of AI.
Wider trend: NHS Trust digital transformation
HTN was joined by an expert panel including Neill Crump, group associate director for innovation and partnerships at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals and The Dudley Group, and Sameer Gangoli, clinical and governance lead for AI at University Hospitals Sussex, to discuss AI for NHS trusts. Our panel shared approaches, best practices, challenges, successes, and learnings for the practical implementation of AI technologies across health and care organisations, moving on to explore measuring benefits, as well as assessing security and governance.
Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has rolled out ambient voice technology across more locations and community services following a successful trial. The initial trial of the Lyrebird AVT solution incorporated services including same day emergency care, dermatology, rheumatology, and urology. The technology will now be used in services including the emergency department, paediatrics, orthopaedics, the stroke unit, and the minor injuries unit, MCHT reports.
King’s College Hospital and Guy’s and St Thomas’ have reported savings of £4.1 million from their combined use of the Epic EPR system. The trusts point to the avoidance of 3.3 million duplicate or repeat tests, saving up to 275,000 hours of nursing and phlebotomy time since 2023. This has been supported by the system automatically cancelling duplicate blood test orders placed within one hour of each other, the trust notes. Automated alerts generated when clinicians order repeat tests sooner than recommended by national and Royal College guidelines, are credited with preventing 384,000 tests and saving £3.6 million.
