Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust (RCHT) has announced a plan to develop a new electronic patient record (EPR) system.
It said it is aiming for a single solution to replace several digital and paper based systems by spring 2025.
The project involves a collaboration of digital and clinical teams, and will be backed by a share of the £1.9 billion made available by NHS England to help trusts meet a core level of digital maturity and have EPRs in place.
Kelvyn Hipperson, RCHT’s CIO, said: “We already use quite a lot of technology but bringing many of our systems together to adopt a single platform will mean we can provide a more joined up way of working across our hospitals, improving safety, and the way we care.
“The EPR is just one aspect of our digital transformation plan which has patient care and safety at its core. We’re currently updating the technology on our wards, and we’ve been named as a UK pilot site for ‘the silent hospital,’ a project that uses smart technology to make the hospital environment calmer for patients.”
Flow and scheduling
Chief medical officer Dr Allister Grant added: “For clinicians, information will be more accurate, it will help coordinate patient flow and support effective scheduling in areas like operating theatres and outpatients, and it will also hold information from other systems, reducing duplication.
“But it’s great news for patients too with an improved experience across our health and care system. We know that patients often have to repeat their healthcare story, but with an EPR it doesn’t matter which of our hospitals a patient attends, their record will follow their healthcare journey even if they move between our services and departments.”
